The Middlesex High School (MHS) Chargers advance to the finals of the Class 1 Region A basketball tournament tomorrow at Lancaster High School with a 63-61 win Thursday over the Northampton Yellow Jackets.
The no. 2 seed Chargers will play no. 1 seed Lancaster Red Devils in the finals tomorrow and win or lose Middlesex has automatically gained a trip to the Virginia State 6A basketball tournament. Tipoff will be at 7 p.m. The Lancaster Red Devils defeated Westmoreland last night, 64-49 to advance to the finals.
The game Thursday was a nail-biter in the end as the Chargers held the Yellow Jackets to just 20 points in the first half to Middlesex’s 30.The second half was a whole different game as Northampton came alive in the second half outscoring the Chargers, 41-33.
During the second half, the yellow jacket had a smothering full court press putting two of its best defenders on Charger star Ichi Layne. This put pressure on the rest of the team to get the ball up the floor. The pressure resulted in turnovers and scores off turnovers to get Northampton back in the game.
One key to the Chargers win in the end was the free-throw shooting of Malik Dandy who scored 6 points from the charity line in the fourth quarter. Dandy was the top scorer in the game with 24 points.
Layne scored 14 points having two long-range three pointers and JaQuan Griffin scored 13 points mostly coming off strong drives to the basket resulting in easy layups.
Nathan Powell, Cameron Lambert and Davonte Griffin provided enough offense and particularly defense to give the Chargers the edge in the end. D. Griffin scored 5 points; Lambert, 4 points and Powell had three points.
