Roundup: Lampley’s 22 points help Scotland upend Union Pines

LAURINBURG — From the last time the Scotland Fighting Scots basketball team played at home on Dec. 11 to Friday night’s contest against the Union Pines Vikings, sporadic changes that include players leaving the program have occurred that have caused the Scots to lose all but one of their six games since then.

But against the Vikings, Scotland had the assistance of Dylan Lampley, who stepped up to drop 22 points and help the Scots get a 58-52 upset victory over Union Pines, now 9-4 overall and 1-1 in the Sandhills Athletic Conference.

”The team we’ve got, they expect me to step up, do big time things for them, and they’ve got my back just like I’ve got theirs,” Lampley said. “I think this can make our whole record go full circle, flip it around, have a positive record like we’re supposed to (have).”

Scotland (5-8, 1-2 SAC) has just seven players rostered now, including a new addition in Darreus McDougald, who joined the team earlier in the week. And throughout all 13 contests the Scots have played, they haven’t had consecutive games with the same team from the previous one.

It’s created a scenario that Scotland head coach Michael Malpass didn’t envision he’d see this season.

“All year, we’ve flipped our roster, but we also hadn’t had consecutive practice days, which makes it really hard to teach and to build kind of the set, if you will,” Malpass said. “We’ve had three days, and we’ve just decided we’re going JV and varsity together every day, which helps us because we’ve got our hands down to JV guys. We can live-ball stuff when we need to go. We have enough bodies, so the numbers aren’t a big deal anymore. And I probably should have done that all year, but early on, we had enough.”

In the fourth quarter against Union Pines, Scotland had enough to prevail at the free-throw line. After Union Pines’ Aiden Leonard hit a turnaround layup with 18 seconds remaining to cut Scotland’s lead to 55-52, the Vikings were forced to foul, which helped the Scots score the last three points at the stripe.

Lampley had a thunderous start to the frame, scoring six of the first eight points for the Scots to help push them ahead 47-44 with just under five minutes to go. A 3-pointer from Scotland’s Brady Fowler almost a minute later shoved the lead further before Union Pines’ Jaylen Kyle made a layup 12 seconds later.

After Shylan Harrell made it 52-46 with a layup for Scotland, a Kyle free throw with 2:07 left made it a five-point game. A layup from Scotland’s Jaiquez Caldwell moments later was answered with one by Union Pines’ Zion Kiser with 1:40 to go. Neither team scored for the next 1:03 of game time until Caldwell sunk a free throw, making it 55-49.

“I was so proud at the end because we had to change our stall-attack mode,” Malpass said. “We moved, and we attacked and we made them just chase us. And we got to the foul line and finished the game. And that kind of stuff makes you proud.”

Union Pines led just once in the first quarter on the opening two-point basket by Kiser; Scotland spurted seven straight points and built its lead to 13-6 with 1:12 remaining in the period. Kyle netted four points with a McDougald free throw sandwiched between two of them to make it 14-10 after eight minutes.

The Vikings rowed back in front 16-14 within the first 45 seconds of the second frame with a trio of layups. Over the next five minutes, there were six lead changes, with three by each team. And after Caldwell’s shot at the charity stripe was true to make it a one-point Union Pines lead at 25-24 with 49 seconds till halftime, Wesley Bailey splashed in a 3 right before the buzzer to get the Vikings up by four.

”I told them (the team) … stay in what you’re doing because they (the Vikings) weren’t scoring in bunches,” Malpass said. “I can deal with points, but if they’re in bunches, that’s a whole different story.”

Opening the third quarter, Scotland went on an 11-2 run over the first five minutes to go up 35-29. After two free throws from Kiser and a layup by Union Pines’ Kingsley Donaldson, Caldwell connected on a straightaway 3-pointer before Kyle drained five points in the final minute to tie the game at 38-38.

“Tonight, we didn’t have trouble scoring … because they (the Scots) were moving, and they were cutting,” Malpass said. “And as coaches, we’ve simplified, and we’ve said we can’t do quick hitters like we’ve done in the past because then guys stand around. We just need everybody to feel the confidence to score and then kind of see what happens. It won’t work out all the time, but it worked out tonight.”

Caldwell scored 16 points for Scotland, while Harrell and Fowler had six each.

Kyle led the way for the Vikings with 15 points, and Trent Hilburn, Bailey and Kiser had eight points apiece.

Scotland plays Moore County’s other SAC team, Pinecrest, in Laurinburg on Jan. 12.

Lady Scots basketball beats Union Pines to remain unbeaten in SAC play

After a humdrum first half between the Scotland Lady Scots basketball team and the Union Pines Vikings, it seemed as if Scotland’s chances of ringing in 2024 with a win were slimming. But after halftime, the Lady Scots turned the course and came away with a convincing 41-26 victory Friday night in Laurinburg.

Scotland head coach Roshien McClain said he felt not playing since Dec. 22 “kind of got us out of our groove.”

“It’s easier when you’re playing against people; you’re playing here, playing there, your groove is still there. When you’re not playing, now you’ve got to react differently and get back in the swing of things,” McClain said. “So, this was a good test. They’re (the Vikings) well-coached. She (Anissa Little) does a real good job with her team. But we’ve just got to play faster with them; we’ve got to be faster. So that’s what we’re going to work on more.”

Scotland (10-1, 3-0 Sandhills Athletic Conference) mustered 13 points in the first two quarters, while Union Pines (7-6, 1-1 SAC) only had 10. The Lady Scots led 8-1 with over six minutes gone in the first quarter, but back-to-back layups by Alley Hise and a 3-pointer in the left corner by Natalie Auman with three seconds left in the period evened the score.

The first points of the second didn’t come until 6:12 showed on the scoreboard when Morgan Thompson hit a euro step into a layup for Scotland. After Alicia McClain’s free throw and another two from Thompson, Union Pines’ Mikayla Dunn hit a putback layup with 58 seconds until halftime.

“I don’t know what it was, but our mind was not there,” Scotland guard Madison Dixon said. “Like, we were doing what we had to do, but we weren’t pumped to do it. We weren’t excited. We didn’t have the energy.”

”They just weren’t into it,” Roshien McClain said. “It’s always kind of like, we play how the competition is. And sometimes, that ain’t going to work because if they didn’t make half the shots they missed from the 3-point line because that’s what they normally do, they would have been winning the game.”

The only two players to score in the first three minutes of the third were Dixon and Union Pines’ Savannah McCaskill. Each of them got their respective teams going, but it was Scotland that took control with a 19-13 lead.

“I had talked with (Roshien McClain), and (he) said, ‘I don’t know what you’ve got to do, but you need to get it together,’” Dixon said. “He was like, ‘This is the half where you need to lock in because zero (points) in the first half is a little bit outrageous.’ And we’re more of a second-half team. We usually come out the second half and make that our half, and that’s what we did tonight.”

Union Pines scored just four more points in the last five minutes of the frame — including a layup by McCaskill at the buzzer that Roshien McClain argued shouldn’t have been good because the ball was still in her hands — while the Lady Scots netted 10 more to lead 29-17.

With the score at 32-19, Thompson had seven of the ensuing nine points in the game to increase Scotland’s advantage to 37-21 with 3:53 to go. Auman nailed a 3 over 1 1/2 minutes later before both teams traded free throws for the remainder of the action.

Thompson had 14 points to lead all scorers, Dixon had 11 and Alicia McClain had 10.

Auman had eight points and Hise had six for the Vikings.

When Scotland meets its next opponent on Jan. 12 in Pinecrest, it’ll be the first time the two teams have met since Pinecrest defeated Scotland in the SAC tournament last season 58-53 in overtime.

And while Pinecrest has a new head coach in Aysha Pride and some unfamiliar faces, Roshien McClain still feels the opponent will pump his team up to play harder.

“Come next Friday here, you’ll see a recharged team as far as the game goes,” Roshien McClain said.