WINTERVILLE—Unsurprisingly, the team that won a Kinston High basketball game Friday displayed poise, teamwork, intensity and hustle.
Surprisingly, that team wasn’t the Vikings.
Winterville South Central turned in an almost perfect Kinston-like performance and turned the tables on the Vikings, 66-54, handing the two-time defending state 2A champions their first loss of the season.
The Viking girls, meanwhile, shrugged off a sluggish first 16 minutes with a masterful second half to run over the Falcons, 62-30.
Both the Kinston boys (5-1) and girls (4-1) have one loss on the season.
In the boys contest, it was a defeat that Kinston coach Perry Tyndall could see coming.
“The same issues that we’ve gotten away with early in the season finally came back to bite us,” Tyndall said. “We didn’t play with the necessary urgency, we weren’t patient with the basketball and we were a step slow defensively. Tonight we ran into a team that did all of those things much better than we did.”
Even though the Vikings led by as many as seven in the first half, they never could find their footing and entered intermission locked in a 29-29 tie.
A scary moment occurred with 2:25 left before the break when junior standout Brandon Ingram banged knees with a South Central player inside and limped off the floor directly to the locker room.
Ingram did play in the second half, although he experienced some obvious soreness and had his most inefficient game of the season with just eight points on 3-of-13 shooting.
Ingram did manage nine rebounds and three blocked shots before exiting the game.
“Brandon’s okay,” Tyndall said. “He struggled and may have been affected some by his knee, but that’s not why we lost. We just got outplayed by a team that wanted to win more than we did.”
Kinston led 33-31 when South Central reeled off nine points in a row and 11 of the next 12. The Vikings never recovered.
Leading by three heading into the final period, the Falcons didn’t flinch and shut down every Kinston run with heady, unflustered play.
With the game on the line, South Central hit six of 11 shots from the floor in the last 8 minutes and connected on 10 of 12 free throws.
SC’s Tyrick Suggs opened the fourth period with a long 3-pointer and Kinston never got closer than six the remainder of the game.
“South Central’s talented, athletic and well-coached,” Tyndall said. “They deserve all the credit. We didn’t play well enough to win, but a lot of that was South Central’s doing. They came ready to play.”
Andrew Lopez led the Vikings with 15 points to go along with seven assists. Darnell Dunn added 10 points and nine rebounds for Kinston.
The Vikings turned the ball over 15 times and forced just seven Falcon miscues, a season-worst defensive performance.
South Central (4-2) has won four in a row since a 68-48 loss at Kinston on Dec. 3.
Girls’ Game
Kinston led 18-10 at the break after shooting just 30 percent (7 of 23) in the first half.
A 7-of-12 performance from 3-point range in the second half cured a lot of those offensive ills.
Shika Mason bombed away for a game-high 18 points, including five treys, as the Vikings totally dominated the final two periods, outscoring the hosts 44-20.
Mason nailed four from long range in the final frame alone.
“We had some good looks, but we finally started knocking them down in the second half,” Kinston coach Hubert Quinerly said. “With Lydia (Rivers) back on the inside and finally rounding into game shape, that helps open things up for our shooters.”
The 6-foot-1 Rivers, who missed Kinston’s first two games with a leg injury, showed glimpses of her old self, scoring 15 points and pulling down 10 rebounds.
She set the tone early when she grabbed a South Central miss and then dribbled coast-to-coast for the game’s first points.
In the third quarter, Rivers delivered back-to-back conventional 3-point plays and nearly produced a third before missing the free throw.
“We didn’t score a lot of points in the first half, but I still thought we played well, except for our shooting percentage,” Quinerly said. “In the second half we did just about everything right, probably our best half of the year so far.”
Brittany Drumgoole added 11 points for the Vikings, who finished nine of 23 from beyond the 3-point line for the contest.
Boys
Kinston 15 14 10 15—54
South Central 11 18 13 24—66
Kinston scoring: Andrew Lopez 15, Darnell Dunn 10, Ingram 8, Canady 8, Hart 7, Ham 2, Jones 2, Darius Dunn 2, Berry.
SC scoring: Tyrick Suggs 21, Jae’Tavion Edwards 15, Malik Edwards 10, Jordan 9, Cherry 6, Willis 3, Carlton 2.
Girls
Kinston 8 10 22 22—62
Kinston scoring: Shika Mason 18, Lydia Rivers 15, Brittany Drumgoole 11, Davis 8, Addison 5, Harper 3, Faison 2, Mayo.
SC scoring: Streeter 9, Jerome 7, McCoy 6, George 4, Lockamy 2, Barrett 2, Little, McCallum, Stocks, Tyson, Goff.