LAURINBURG — Senior Zaymon Gibson scored 19 points as the Fighting Scots boys basketball team defeated the Purnell Swett Rams, 65-53, on Senior Night Friday.
Juniors Javeer Pasley contributed 15 points, and Collin Hill added eight points and 14 rebounds to the final score. The Scots rallied from a 45-39 deficit at the end of the third quarter.
“This win feels amazing,” Gibson said. “We’re coming off a 0-4 conference record. As a team, we just wanted to shake off the bad mojo and get a winning streak going and make it to the playoffs.”
Scotland snapped a four-game losing skid to give their seniors a victory.
“We definitely wanted a win for the seniors,” head coach Jarvis Cobb said. “We challenged the guys; we’re at the bottom of the barrel, and it’s on us to see if we’re going to fight back. So far, they have accepted the challenge.”
The game mirrored the Scots’ season: they started 4-1 and let some games slip away, leaving them at 8-10. Against the Rams, Scotland jumped out to a 14-7 lead at the end of the first quarter, but Purnell Swett led at the end of the first half and third quarter. Unlike previous games, the Scots showed true fight.
“Usually, we get up on teams, and we allow them to come back,” Cobb said. “But tonight was something different. We jumped out, they [Purnell Swett] took it back and we fought back from a double-digit lead.”
“We came ready to play and gave them [Purnell Swett] everything we had. Just because we’re winning doesn’t mean we have the upper hand. The focus is to play an entire game with the same intensity and come away with a victory,” senior Shylan Harrell said.
Scotland shot 44% from the field and improved their record to 9-10. They will host the 3-15 Gray’s Creek Bears Monday at 7:30 p.m.
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