Through the grind of three games in three days, the theme for the Orange men’s basketball team has been to start hot, fade in the third quarter and fall short of the finish line with victory in sight.
It’s what led to an 0-7 start.
The pattern was broken on Saturday.
Jerec Thompson scored 16 points in the opening quarter, 23 in the first half and wound up with a career-high 32 as the Panthers (1-7, 1-6) defeated Vance County 65-62 on Saturday inside Viper Gymnasium.
The victory was Orange’s first in 357 days and ended an eight-game losing streak. Senior Jason Franklin added 23 points, including 16 in the second half.
“It feels good to get a win after a bad start,” Thompson said. “It feels really good right now. When you’re feeling it like that early, it feels like everything you shoot is going in.”
On Thursday against Southern Durham, Orange built a 15-point lead, led by 12 at the half but ended up losing 64-52. On Friday, the Panthers led Cedar Ridge 24-12 in the first half, but lost the lead by halftime and lost the game, as well, 51-48.
“It’s endurance, but it’s more mental,” Thompson said. “We have younger guys and we just need to learn how to win.”
“We knew coming into this game that we’re not an 0-7 team,” Franklin said. “We know we’re better than our record. This afternoon was us figuring out how to win.”
Thompson opened by scoring 16 of Orange’s first 18 points, including five three-pointers, as the Panther roared out to an 18-8 lead. The Panthers led wire-to-wire, despite the Vipers predictably clawing back to within one point in the second half.
If there was any time for Orange to run out of gas, it was on Saturday. It was the Panthers’ third game in three days. Sophomore Thomas Loch was called up from the junior varsity team just to have nine players in uniform.
Thompson and Franklin played the entire 32 minutes, while junior point guard J.J. Thompson played 31. Vance County (1-1), which has been in quarantine up until this week, had 14 players on the roster in only its second game.
Thompson and Franklin scored on transition lay-ups to open the fourth quarter and increase Orange’s lead to 53-41 with 5:12 remaining. Vance County’s Tra’On Lyons started a Viper rally with a three-pointer. After Tizaerion Holden blocked a shot by Ryan Moss, Lyons scored on a lay-in.
After J.J. Thompson sank two free throws to increase Orange’s lead to 55-46, Vance’s Saimir Betts’ drilled a 3-pointer. Kevon Burton rebounded a Thompson miss for a lay-in, then Lyons’ sank a 3-pointer to cut the Orange lead to 55-54 with 2:10 remaining.
On the next Orange possession, Franklin split two free throws after getting fouled on a drive to the lane. With Orange leading 56-54, Betts’ 3-point attempt was blocked by Franklin. After Kyle Stanley got the rebound for Orange, Franklin dished the ball to Jerec Thompson, who drilled a 19-footer with 48 seconds remaining.
“It was probably a shot I shouldn’t have taken,” Thompson said.
Thompson’s hot start was the polar opposite from Orange’s last trip to Henderson in January 2020. On that night, Vance County roared out to a 28-3 lead against a shellshocked Orange team that had just learned hours earlier that senior Machai Holt had been dismissed from the team.
Orange will host Northwood on Tuesday night for senior night. Because of the unique nature of this season, this was Orange’s final Big 8 Conference game. Only the first meetings against Big 8 teams count in the conference standings. The remaining games on Orange’s schedule will be considered non conference matchups.
Before tipoff, a moment of silence was held to honor legendary Vance County Coach Wilson Baskett, who passed away on January 9. Baskett played at the original Vance High School, then became head coach of the Vikings. When Vance High split into two schools in 1990, he remained head coach at Northern Vance High School. He was the first head coach at Vance County when the Vance School Board consolidated the two high schools in 2018. Baskett won 402 career games and four conference championships.
ORANGE 65, VANCE COUNTY 62
ORANGE: J.J. Thompson 4, Jason Franklin 23, Jerec Thompson 32, Darius Corbett 3, Hunter Birch 3.
VANCE COUNTY: Kevon Burton 3, Tra’On Lyons 22, Adrian Durham 6, Jaylen Fields 5, Zy’Shawn Appling 4, Saimir Betts 16, Johntavious Jiggetts 2, Tizaerion Holden 2, Traejon Durham 2