ROCK HILL, S.C. – Just under three-and-a-half minutes
remained on the clock. Winthrop’s Paul Jones tried a layup. Presbyterian’s
Jaylen Peterson rejected the try. The ball fell into the hands of Winthrop star
Kelton Talford, who went back up to attempt a putback. Peterson tried to
contest the shot and was assessed a personal foul. Almost immediately
thereafter, he was also given a Class A technical foul.
Winthrop proceeded to knock down three of the four free
throw tries it was awarded. The Eagles capitalized on the opportunity,
closing the game on a 14-5 run and claiming a 76-67 victory before an announced
crowd of 1,884 at Winthrop Coliseum Wednesday night.
Presbyterian coach Quinton Ferrell took a long time to
gather his thoughts, then talked to his team after the game. Though it is tough
to argue that a single play could change a game, Ferrell was struggling to
understand why the play happened and how to convey what he was told about the
foul.
“(Peterson) jumped really high is what he said,” Ferrell
said. “They told me that another block that he had was a block, but it was a
dangerous play. That part’s unfortunate, but in games, you’re going to have
stuff that you can’t control. That’s why we needed to be better on defense.”
“That was a huge shift in the game. It was a tie game. We
blocked the ball and got possession of it. We came out of that situation down
three, so we were kind of fighting uphill through adversity. We’ll get better
from it.”
“There’s a million plays throughout the course of a game,”
Winthrop coach Mark Prosser said. “It’s not one play. It’s not one moment in
that game decides the end. It’s sort of the culmination of everything. It was a
tie game and we got to go to the line. (Guard) Kasen (Harrison) stepping up
there and making one and KT stepping up there and making two changed the
complexion (of the game) in some ways.”
Winthrop (14-9, 4-4 Big South) took control of the game
early. The Eagles scored 11 of the game’s first 14 points, getting early boosts
from Talford and guard Ryan Jolly . Winthrop enjoyed its biggest lead of the
first half at eight points on a pair of occasions before the visitors launched
a charge. Presbyterian (9-14, 2-6) used a 17-9 run over the next
eight-and-a-half minutes to level the score at 27 with 1:49 remaining in the
first half. Five Blue Hose scorers contributed to the burst.
Winthrop then closed the half on a 5-0 stretch, using a
Jones three-pointer and pair of free throws from forward K.J. Doucet to take a
32-27 lead to the interval.
Presbyterian persisted, though, despite trailing by as many
as seven almost immediately into the second half. The Blue Hose chipped away,
thinning the Eagle lead to as few as three points and finding themselves on the
precipice of tying the game or going ahead. They never managed to do so until a
key sequence with around nine minutes remaining in the second half.
Winthrop led by seven after a pair of Talford free throws.
Kobe Stewart converted a layup for Presbyterian, then Kory Mincy made a layup
of his own. Following a 30-second Winthrop stoppage, the game remained
scoreless for the next minute and a half. Mincy then converted a pair of free
throws, then finally gave his side the lead on the ensuing possession with a
three-pointer following an offensive rebound.
The home side would seize back the lead with a 5-0 burst,
only for Carl Parrish to hit an equalizing three-pointer for Presbyterian with
4:59 remaining. Nick Johnson again evened the score on a pair of free throws,
only for Triston Wilson to give the advantage back to the Blue Hose on a pair
from the stripe. Kasen Harrison then evened up the game again on a runner, only
for the sequence between Jones, Talford, and Peterson to unfold.
Ferrell stopped short of citing the sequence as the lone key
to the result, but it did highlight a recurring theme for the Blue Hose.
Presbyterian has found itself in several close games – especially in Big South
play – only for the team not to close the way it hoped. The Blue Hose leader
commented after the game on those late-game concerns.
“Pretty much all our league games that we’ve lost in the
(last four minutes) in the second half, we’ve either been tied or it’s been a
one-possession game. We’ve just struggled to get stops to close out the game,”
Ferrell said. “It’s what we’ve been emphasizing and talking about a lot. Most
teams in the last three minutes are not doing anything new that they haven’t
been doing in the first 36, 37 minutes of the game.”
“I don’t know what it is with our guys when we get in those
situations, in terms of executing our rotations and things of that nature.
We’ve got to figure out a way to do what we did from the eight-minute mark to
the 3:30 mark, because we were down seven and we took the lead. In that
stretch, we were getting stops. They were running the same things. We just
needed to guard the ball better. The difference in the game was the free
throws, in terms of how many free throws they made compared to us.”
To Ferrell’s point, the Eagles attempted double the amount
of free throws as did the Blue Hose. Winthrop also sank nine more tries from
the line, hitting 19-of-26 to the Blue Hose’s 10-of-13.
Talford bounced back with a strong effort following limited
minutes due to foul trouble in Saturday’s game at High Point. The senior logged
another of his many double-doubles, scoring 25 points and snaring 10 caroms. 17
of those points and six of the boards came in the closing 20 minutes.
“We just needed that to get back into the groove of things,”
Talford said. “They’ve got a good coach and good guys on their team. You could
tell they planned for us.”
“The look in his eyes the last couple of days has been
different,” Prosser said of Talford. “There’s a pride level in this program. He
has put his blood, sweat, and tears in this uniform. He’s very proud of what
this program’s about. He was terrific today.”
Doucet and Johnson added 12 and 10, respectively, for the
Eagles. Winthrop shot 46.4 percent (26-for-56), despite hitting just 5-of-20
(25 percent) from distance. Center Logan Duncomb also offered a strong
performance in reserve duty, scoring eight points and snatching five misses in
just over eight minutes of play.
Mincy paced the Blue Hose, booking 20 points on 6-of-16 from
the field. Stewart logged his second double-double of the 2024-25 campaign,
registering 12 points and 10 boards. Peterson and Carl Parrish provided big
games off the bench, with Peterson scoring nine, grabbing five boards, and
swatting away six shots. The blocked shot total matched the highest in Big
South play this season. Parrish scored 13 in 25 minutes of play, hitting 5-of-8
from the field (3-of-6 from distance).
“We’ve got a lot of confidence in the guys that come off our
bench,” Ferrell said. “All of those guys have had big games already in
conference. They’re all young guys, too.”
Both teams return to conference play at home Saturday
afternoon. Presbyterian welcomes second-place High Point to the Templeton
Center in Clinton, S.C. Winthrop hosts rival Gardner-Webb. Both games are set
for 2:00 (Eastern) starts, with streaming coverage over ESPN+.
WINTHROP 76, PRESBYTERIAN 67
PRESBYTERIAN (9-14, 2-6 BIG SOUTH)
King 1-5 0-1 2, Stewart 5-14 1-2 12, Mincy 6-16 6-6 20,
Harvey 2-7 0-0 5, Scott 1-2 0-0 2, Wilson 1-3 2-2 4, Pettaway 0-2 0-0 0,
Parrish 5-8 0-0 13, Peterson 4-6 1-2 9. Totals 25-63 10-13 67.
WINTHROP (14-9, 4-4)
Jolly 2-6 0-0 5, Talford 9-13 7-7 25, Johnson 3-8 3-6 10,
Harrison 1-3 3-4 5, Doucet 4-8 4-6 12, Wilson 1-1 0-1 3, Jones 1-5 0-0 3,
Diallo 0-0 0-0 0, Kamarad 1-3 0-0 2, Hamilton 0-1 0-0 0, Duncomb 3-5 2-2 8,
Baker 1-3 0-0 3. Totals 26-56 19-26 76.
Halftime: Winthrop 32-27u. 3-Point
goals: Presbyterian 7-24 (King 0-2, Stewart 1-6, Mincy 2-4, Harvey
1-5, Pettaway 0-1, Parrish 3-6), Winthrop 5-20 (Jolly 1-4, Johnson 1-4,
Harrison 0-1, Doucet 0-2, Wilson 1-1, Jones 1-3, Kamarad 0-2, Baker 1-3). Fouled
out: Peterson (PC). Rebounds: Winthrop
42 (Talford 10), Presbyterian 33 (Stewart 10). Total fouls: Presbyterian
23, Winthrop 15. Technicals: Bench (WU), Peterson (PC).
Points off turnovers: Presbyterian 11, Winthrop
7. Points in the paint: Winthrop 42, Presbyterian 32. Second-chance
points: Winthrop 15, Presbyterian 12. Fast-break
points: Winthrop 13, Presbyterian 10. Bench
points: Presbyterian 26, Winthrop 19.
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