Central girls hang on

Fri. February 03, 2012 at 11:52 p.m. | By Jason Queen

Chandler Young goes in for an underhanded layup in front of East Davidson's Ariel Grimsley late in their game Friday night. (Photo by Donnie Roberts/The Dispatch)

Kevin Hudson wasn’t pleased with the way Skylar Briggs played in the first half.

She more than made up for it down the stretch.

The pint-sized Central Davidson junior with a nose for the ball came up with two steals in the final 35 seconds to help the Spartans fight off East Davidson 54-52 in a Central Carolina Conference showdown at Central on Friday. Down 51-48 late, Chandler Young took care of the offense, scoring five of her team’s final six points to help Central move to 4-4 in the league, 12-8 overall. Coupled with Lexington’s loss to Salisbury, the Spartans forged a tie with the Jackets for third place, setting up a huge game against Lexington at Central on Tuesday.

But it wasn’t easy. Locked in a tie game, Central went to a zone trap that forced the Eagles into five turnovers in the final four minutes. The Eagles missed a wide-open layup that would have been big as well. The key cog in that frenzy was Briggs, who always seemed to be in the right place at the right time.

“She works so hard,” Hudson said. “I challenged her at halftime; she had a bad first half, wasn’t focused. But she came out in the second half and really played tough.”

East coach Don Corry, whose team dipped to 2-6 in the CCC, 10-10 overall, was frustrated that his team didn’t answer his challenge in a pair of late timeouts. Against the trap, the Eagles committed three turnovers that looked like DVR rewinds. “We just didn’t take care of the ball,” Corry said. “They kept going right down in that corner.

“I kept telling them not to go down there. I called timeout and said, ‘Don’t go down in that corner,’ and that’s right where she went.”

The game was nip-and-tuck the whole way, with Central’s early 6-1 lead the largest cushion either team enjoyed. There were 10 ties and 14 lead changes, and neither team could create any distance with a long run. Sydney Jones buried two 3-pointers and Ariel Grimsley hit a trey of her own to give East a big second quarter, but Young — who finished with a game-high 21 points — kept the Spartans in it with a pair of 3-balls of her own in the quarter. Grimsley’s long banker from the wing at the buzzer pushed East ahead 29-27 at the break.

The Spartans rebounded to grab a 42-40 lead heading into the final quarter, but Taylor Bell scored four straight points late to give East a 51-48 edge with three minutes left. Young then got fouled after an East turnover and made one free throw, and followed that up with a driving scoop shot to tie things up at 51-51. After Victoria Hedrick’s free throw put Central ahead 52-51 with 43 seconds left, Briggs came up with a steal and got the ball to Young, who was fouled and converted both shots from the charity stripe. On the ensuing possession, Briggs did it again with nine seconds left to seal the deal.

Hedrick finished with 11 points for Central. Bell led East with 11 points, and Lori Morgan added 10.