Thomasville rallies to edge Spartans
Fri. January 27, 2012 at 11:41 p.m. | By Mike Duprez
Central Davidson’s Chris Pompey (second from left) loses the ball as Thomasville’s Desmond Wilson (far left) and Frank Ingram defend Friday night at Central. (Photo by Mike Duprez)
Thomasville’s Frank Ingram is a powerful, 6-foot-2, 250-pound offensive lineman, good enough to be named to The Dispatch All-Davidson County team after the 2011 football season.
The big guy wasn’t too bad on the hardwood Friday night, either.
Ingram scored three key buckets as the Bulldogs completed a stirring rally to beat Central Davidson 49-47 in a Central Carolina Conference game at Central.
“Just my teammates helping me out,” Ingram said. “It’s just simple basketball. There’s only one way to play.”
The Bulldogs, who trailed by 12 points in the third quarter, have won two in a row after an 0-11 start. They are 2-3 in the CCC.
Coming in with a 1-11 record against a 15-3 team, maybe the Bulldogs were decided underdogs. Then again, maybe not.
“We’ve been there the whole time,” said Thomasville coach Tony Clark. “Lexington got credit for playing a tough nonconference schedule and we never got credit for it. We lost three conference games by a total of seven points. But we’ve been coming. We feel like any time we put on a Thomasville uniform, that has to be counted for. Any time you count us out, that’s where we want to be.”
Clark wasn’t talking about Central coach Brian Hege, though.
“They were dangerous the first time we played them,” Hege said. “They played a tough nonconference schedule. You can’t look at them and say they’re 0-11. You can’t say East Davidson is 6-12, Lexington is 8-8 and we’re 15-3. Any team can beat any other team on any given night, especially when you don’t shoot free throws well.”
Central led the entire game before the Bulldogs caught up and went ahead with an 11-0 run. The Spartans (15-4 overall, 4-2 CCC) were still in pretty decent shape with a 39-30 lead at the two-minute mark of the third quarter.
But the Bulldogs never quit scrapping and the tide turned. Ingram, who finished with six points, scored on a putback to tie the game at 39-39 with 5:10 left. Then he played tight defense against Greg Mininni, forcing a difficult shot that was off the mark. Ingram then put the Bulldogs ahead for the first time with a tip-in.
Chris Pompey, who had a game-high 13 points, quickly answered that with a 3-pointer from the wing, giving Central a 42-41 lead with four minutes left.
Quanny Johnson scored on a floater to put the Bulldogs back in front and Ingram scored on a backdoor layup to make it 45-42.
“Frank played really well,” Clark said.
Central nearly saved the evening after Malik Johnson’s two free throws stretched Thomasville’s lead to 49-45 with 19 seconds left. Mininni scored quickly on a layup and Ingram was fouled with 3 seconds left. Ingram missed the front end of the 1-and-1 and the Spartans were able to get a long pass to Forrest Reynolds, who had an open look at a 3-pointer at the buzzer but missed.
“We got the shot we wanted,” Hege said.
Demoris Payne led Thomasville (2-11 overall, 2-3 CCC) with 11 points and Quanny Johnson had 10. Mininni scored 12 points for the Spartans.
Both teams were equally bad from the free throw line, with Thomasville going 2-for-11 and Central 4-for-12.