From a ceiling already full of banners, two more will hang at Viking Gym.
Monique Lofton scored 17 points and Kinston’s girls basketball team clinched the Eastern Plains 2A Conference regular season championship Tuesday in a 63-39 win over Tarboro.
Denzel Keyes scored 23 points and Josh Dawson had 15 assists in its boys’ 88-38 win over Tarboro to clinch at least a share of its seventh consecutive league crown.
All are seniors and all three were instrumental in helping their teams win on senior night.
But in both games, an entire team effort was instrumental in keeping the titles in Kinston.
Sophomore Takerian Harper added 14 points and freshman Xequoijah Washington scored 12 points off the bench for Kinston’s girls, who used an 11-0 run in the first quarter to go up big and never look back.
Junior Brittany Drumgoole struggled from the field, scoring four points on just 2 of 8 shooting, but she added eight assists on a night when her team had 19 total assists on 25 made field goals.
Senior Alexis Williams added six assists to give Kinston (17-4, 10-0) its third straight league title and its eighth straight win.
“We were making the extra pass, the shots were falling, we were having one of those nights — especially on Senior Night,” said Kinston coach Hubert Quinerly, who was without starter Lydia Rivers and top reserve Hannah Vermillion due to injuries.
“(The bench) stepped up and that’s all you can ask for.”
Kinston’s biggest lead came at 50-25 with 2:37 left in the third quarter on a three-point play by Washington.
Lofton hit five 3-pointers and was 5 of 8 from behind the arc.
“We put up a lot of shots yesterday (in practice) and made some. I thought the girls shot the ball well tonight in rhythm,” Quinerly said.
“That’s a great job by the team. Now they get to hang another banner in here, but we’ve got to keep on rolling.”
KINSTON 88, TARBORO 38
A dunk by DeAnthony Axum gave Tarboro a one-point lead early in the contest and drew ear-piercing cheers from its fans.
They didn’t have much to cheer about after that.
Kinston answered Axum’s dunk with a 16-point flurry that included a few highlight-reel dunks of its own by Keyes and put it in the driver’s seat the rest of the way.
Axum’s dunk gave Tarboro the early 5-4 lead, and in a matter of minutes Kinston led 20-4 and the lead never shrank below that.
Junior Andrew Lopez scored 16 points, 12 off 3s, and was 5 of 7 shooting from the field. Sophomore Brandon Ingram, playing in front of representatives from N.C. State, scored 13 points.
Keyes was a perfect 7 for 7 in the first half, six of which were dunks. He hit his first 10 shots before missing his first attempt in the fourth quarter.
Keyes, who will sign with N.C. A&T University this morning, was 11 for 14 from the field and had a team-high eight rebounds.
Tarboro, which committed 17 turnovers and had no one reach double figures, dropped its ninth straight game.
Top-ranked Kinston can clinch the title outright with a win at Greene Central on Friday. It has a two-game lead in the loss column over North Pitt, a 61-45 winner over SouthWest Edgecombe on Tuesday, with two games left.
“We’ve got so many scorers who can score. We take every possession like it’s our last,” said Dawson, who set a career mark for assists.
“It was an important game because it was a conference game. … The way we went out on senior night is great.”
Ryan Herman can be reached at 252-559-1073 or Ryan.Herman@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter: @KFPSports.
GIRLS
Tarboro 10 6 16 8—39
Kinston 19 16 20 8—63
VIKINGS (3-6 EP2A) — Nyasha Savage 10, Ruffin 7, Jones 6, A. Williams 6, Thorne 4, Shaw 2, Perkins 2, Perry 2, T. Williams, Guilford, White.
VIKINGS (17-4, 10-0) — Monique Lofton 17, Takerian Harper 14, Xequoijah Washington 12, Clark 8, Addison 4, Williams 4, Drumgoole 4, Thi.
BOYS
Tarboro 11 7 14 6—38
Kinston 25 23 26 14—88
VIKINGS (1-8 EP2A) — Gregory 9, K. Jones 8, Clapp 5, D. Jones 4, Axum 4, Moore 3, Winfield 3, Hudson 1, Dickens 1, Hyman, Braswell, Brown, Battle.
VIKINGS (18-2, 10-0) — Denzel Keyes 23, Andrew Lopez 16, Brandon Ingram 13, Dawson 8, Dunn 8, Canady 7, Taylor 5, Williams 5, Jackson 2, Jones 1, Ham, Joyner, White, Hart, Rouse.