COLUMBIA, S.C. — Voorhees had a hand in unseating No. 4 Mountain State as the Independent Regional champion after all.
One day after blasting Voorhees University 107-80, Mountain State was up against another Voorhees — Brandon Voorhees of No. 9 Park (Mo).
And the smooth Pirate, the Independent Regions leading scorer, powered Park to a 93-82 win with 35 points to claim the school’s first Independent Region championship. With it, Park receives an automatic bid to the national tournament in Kansas City beginning March 14.
Voorhees had 14 points in the final 2:55 on a 20-0 Park run to end the game.
In a see-saw affair, Mountain State had gone ahead 82-73, its biggest lead of the game, on a runout basket from Adron Marshall that capped a 7-0 Cougar run.
From that point on, it was all Park.
Voorhees had a three-pointer and a turnaround as the Pirates cut the lead to 82-80.
After Donald Merriweather tied it at 82, Voorhees converted a three-point play, the first of nine straight free throws in the final 40.7 seconds to seal the victory.
Four came late when a Cougar’s Assistant Coach was hit with two technical fouls.
It is the first time since 2002 that MSU won’t enter the national tournament as the Independent champion.
“They had a great will to win the game at the end and we didn’t execute anything,” MSU coach Bob Bolen said. “Give them all the credit. They had the will to win.”
Mountain State, which led by five briefly in the first half, trailed by four at the break, 43-39.
Park went ahead by as many as eight (51-43), but a 23-7 MSU run, capped by a Paul Wright three-point play, turned that deficit into an eight-point lead, 66-58.
Again, Park (24-8) fought back to retake the lead, with a 15-5 run.
That’s when MSU went on a 13-1 run to set up the final, and what turned out to be all Park, 2:55.
Paul Wright led the Cougars with 30 points and Ralph Legg added 20. Yusuf Baker had 17 and Ermin Tarcin had six, but fouled out with 9:03 remaining.
MSU (27-5) will find out its seed for the national tournament Tuesday.
The national tournament begins Wednesday, March 14. The first round spans two days, Wednesday and Thursday.
Park 92, Mountain State 81
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