North surprises Davie County

Tue. January 24, 2012 at 11:44 p.m. | By Bruce Wehrle

WELCOME | If you want a team to shift gears, you don’t always have to step on the gas.

You don’t ever have to step on the brakes.

But you better step on the clutch.

The North Davidson boys got a huge 3-point basket from Brandon Easter with 44 seconds left to play, then held Davie County to just one field goal in the final 30 seconds to pull out an unlikely 59-56 Central Piedmont Conference victory over the War Eagles Tuesday night at Pete Jones Gymnasium.

“This is a very satisfying victory,” said North coach Kevin King, whose team is now 1-4 in the CPC, 7-11 overall. “To have let West Forsyth off the hook and have Reagan in a one-possession game with a minute-and-a-half to go. We’ve put ourselves in a position to win just about every game this year and we’ve had nothing to show for it.”

Until now.

The Knights trailed 54-52 with a minute to go after Davie’s Nate Jones scored on a layup.

But with 44 seconds left to play, Easter swished a 3-pointer from the right elbow to put North up 55-54.

With 17 seconds left to play, North’s Charles Brunson drained a pair of free throws to give the Knights a 57-54 edge. On top of that, North had two fouls to give. They used one of those foul on Shannon Dillard, who put up a soft hook that found nothing but net to trail 57-56 with four seconds left to play. But Dillard missed the foul shot that could have tied the game and Shy Tuttle brought down the rebound. Tuttle was fouled and calmly sank both of his free throws with 1.4 seconds left to secure the victory.

“We’re proven that we’re capable of playing with people, but we haven’t proven that we’re capable of beating people,” said King. “I hope we’re able to start turning that around now.”

It was a matter of clutch shooting and clutch defense down the stretch.

Mitchell paced North with 14 points while Tuttle scored 11, all of them in the second half.

Davie County falls to 1-3 in the league, 12-5 overall.