The comeback kids
Lee explodes in final stanza to propel Clinton
Clinton’s Jeremiah Lee powered the Dragons to a 59-53 win over Northview Saturday night with 32 points — 16 coming in the fourth quarter. (photo:Ken Leinart )
Lee scored 32 points and had half of those in the fourth quarter to lead Clinton to a 59-53 victory over Northview Academy in the Region 2-AAA Tournament quarterfinals.
The Dragons feature one of the area’s youngest rosters and thus have had their share of struggles.
But they reached the District 4-AAA championship game early last week, where as a fourth seed, they lost to No.3 Anderson County, their crosstown rival.
Clinton reached the regional semifinals with a 10-21 overall record. It played Carter Tuesday on the Hornets’ home floor in Strawberry Plains. Results were not available at press time.
“Our kids got a big win,” CHS Coach Chris Lockard said. “And what’s helped us is the schedule that we’ve played.
“We’re still not there, but the kids could’ve easily folded up their tents. But they didn’t.”
The Dragons faced an uphill battle against the Cougars and trailed 32-30 heading into the final quarter.
Clinton attempted to slow the tempo, according to Lockard, but Northview cranked things up and that actually played into the Dragons’ advantage as they closed the game on a 29-21 run and found their way into the win column.
“We tried to keep the score down,” Lockard said. “Things sped up and a lot of that was Northview, because they wanted to control the tempo.
“We were able to get Jeremiah some good matchups and he took advantage of it.”
Barrett Maddox, one of Clinton’s post players, had one of the better games of his senior season as he scored 10 points and grabbed nine rebounds.