Hubert Quinerly couldn’t say which aspect was more impressive in his Kinston girls basketball team’s performance over Tarboro — the 14 3-pointers, the 24 assists on 29 made field goals, the 25 forced turnovers, or the 10-possession stretch in the third quarter where the Vikings couldn’t miss.
In all, it was a nearly flawless game for the Vikings.
Monique Lofton scored a career-high 27 points and matched a career high with seven made 3s and Kinston rolled past Tarboro 72-16 Wednesday at Viking Gym and into Friday’s Eastern Plains 2A Conference tournament title game with Wilson Beddingfield.
The second-seeded Bruins knocked off No. 6 Farmville Central 67-24 in the other semifinal to advance to the championship game scheduled for 6 p.m. at Viking Gym.
“It was all-around great,” said Quinerly, whose team held Tarboro to single digits in each quarter. “All around, 1 through 13, I thought we got some good minutes off of everybody.
“We’ve got to come back tomorrow because we’ve got a tough Beddingfield team coming off a big win at Farmville Central.”
Believe it or not, Tarboro (10-14) actually led in this one, 2-0, before Kinston (20-4) reeled off seven straight points to go up 7-2 and was never threatened again.
Kinston hit 6 of 9 from the floor in the first quarter and 8 of 12 in the second to lead 33-7 at the break before really blowing it open by scoring on its first 10 possessions of the second half.
It hit its first six shots of the half, five of them 3s, and finished the third quarter with only one miss in 11 field goal attempts.
Lofton drained three 3-pointers in the period, and hit seven in a row — nine straight from the floor overall — after missing her first two 3s and four of her first five shots.
Her seven 3s matched her career high set against Elizabeth City Northeastern in last season’s sectional finals of the state playoffs.
“At halftime in the locker room I told them in the first 4 minutes we had to come out with a spark and I thought the girls responded really well,” Quinerly said. “(We) scored on our first 10 possessions?
“You’re tough to beat when you do stuff like that.”
Alexis Williams had 11 points (three 3s), seven assists and four steals and Brittany Drumgoole added 11 points (three 3s), six assists and three steals in what Quinerly called “a total team effort.”
The Vikings also had 16 steals as a team.
“It’s tough to beat anybody like that,” he said, speaking from an opponent’s perspective. “This was just a great job, man.”
The worst-shooting quarter Kinston had was the fourth, when it hit 5 of 10 from the floor. Overall, the Vikings shot a blistering 69 percent (29 for 42).
Of their five field goals that weren’t assisted, three were putbacks and the other two 3s by Lofton and Drumgoole who were just left wide open while dribbling the basketball.
“You’ve got to shoot the ball with confidence, make sure your teammates are ready, and play it,” Lofton said. “If it’s there, finish it.
“(Tarboro) came in here with confidence so we had to go ahead and let them know (we weren’t backing down).”
Ryan Herman can be reached at 252-559-1073 or Ryan.Herman@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter: @KFPSports.
Tarboro 4 3 2 7—16
Kinston 13 20 26 13—72
VIKINGS (10-14) — Ruffin 6, Jones 5, Perry 2, Perkins 2, Shaw 1, Thorne, A. Williams, Savage, T. Williams, Guilford, Brown, White.
VIKINGS (20-4) — Monique Lofton 27, Alexis Williams 11, Brittany Drumgoole 11, Harper 8, Rivers 6, Addison 5, Clark 4, Thi, Faison, Vermillion, Tice, Cannon.