BOYS' BASKETBALL -- Saints outlast Warriors in double overtime

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on January 27, 2017 9:57 AM

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DUDLEY -- Had the late NBA Hall-of-Fame coach Chuck Daly been sitting in the stands Thursday evening, he would have paid close attention to No. 32.

That would be Southern Wayne's Shawntwon Leach.

Daly might have compared the 6-foot-2, blue-collar player to Dennis Rodman. No matter the job, Rodman willingly did whatever necessary to help the Detroit Pistons pull out a victory.

Leach certainly did, too.

Using his imposing frame in the paint, Leach constantly crashed the offensive glass and helped lift the Saints past county rival Eastern Wayne 73-70, in a grind-it-out, double-overtime affair on the Eastern Carolina 3-A/4-A Conference scene.

"We call him 'Tank,'" SW head coach Dwight Smith said. "He's our energy guy. He just goes and goes and goes. He does our dirty work...is our Dennis Rodman. He gets on the floor. Whatever we need him to do, he'll do it."

The normally intense rivalry started as a cord-ripping, above-the-rim acrobatic show during the opening minutes.

Southern Wayne's Rakilen Butler drained a pair of drop-back 3-pointers, including one from nearby Mount Olive. Eastern Wayne's Yeonte Royal sent the Warrior faithful into a frenzy with a pair of one-handed slams on his first two touches of the game.

Neither team managed more than a three-point lead from there.

The Saints (5-14 overall, 3-5 ECC) built a seven-point advantage in the fourth quarter, only to see it morph into a 53-52 deficit when Eric Agee dropped in two of his team-leading 20 points. Atrocious free-throwing shooting - an 8 of 25 effort - undoubtedly haunted the Saints and nearly led to their demise.

Dashawn Stephens' offensive putback for SW eventually forced the first extra session at 55-55. Royal drained two free throws to force a second four-minute OT with the contest knotted at 64-all.

Leach and his teammates went to work. They aggressively pounded the offensive glass which led to free throw chances. His offensive putback off a miss by Quentin Carlton gave the Saints a two-possession cushion with 56.6 seconds on the clock.

"We didn't get a defensive rebound down the stretch," said Warriors head coach Bill Manning, whose team dropped to 7-12 overall and 3-5 in league play this season.

"You've got to be able to rebound the ball to close out a defensive possession. 32 really killed us on the boards, especially late in the game. We worked hard defensively, force a tough shot and they'd get a little easy putback. I really thought that was the difference in the ballgame."

Leach tallied eight of his 12 points in the two OT periods and snagged 14 rebounds. Butler ended the evening with 17 points, followed by Carlton with 16 and David Brewer with 10.

Royal posted a double-double - 19 points, 11 rebounds. Wesley Case drained two pivotal 3-pointers to help spark the Warriors' spirited comeback, and concluded the night with 18 points.