Originally appeared in CrescentCitySports.com, 3/10/2020
BATON ROUGE – The Newman Greenies weren’t supposed to get this far.
The fifth seed in Division III, Newman hadn’t advanced as far as the semifinals since the 2001 season.
Top-seeded Dunham, on the other hand, was seeking its fourth consecutive trip to the state finals.
In the end, the Greenies showed their youth, as the battle-tested Tigers held on for a 59-55 win.
Salle Wilson, the Tigers’ only senior, scored a game-high 25 points, with 18 of those coming in the second half. Carlos Stewart added 21. They finished slightly below their combined season average of 48.5.
“They’ve been there before,” said Newman head coach Randy Livingston, himself a three-time state championship as a player at Newman. “They made more plays than we did tonight.”
The biggest play of the game came with 3:15 remaining in the fourth quarter. With Dunham clinging to a 45-43 lead, the ball found its way into the hands of Rhett Greer. Greer had struggled throughout the game, missing several open shots from the right corner.
Standing in that same right corner, Greer let the shot fly. As it hit the bottom of the net, the whistle blew.
It was his only basket of the night, and it came at the perfect time.
The foul, and the ensuing free throw, allowed the Tigers to push their lead back to six. Newman would get no closer until the final shot of the game went through the basket as time expired.
“It’s what the playoffs are about,” said Dunham coach Jonathan Pixley. “It’s about stars performing up to their potential, and then the role players making enough plays.”
Dunham was carried by its stars for most of the night. Stewart got off to a fast start, scoring eight of the Tigers’ 13 first quarter points. He and Wilson combined for 11 of Dunham’s 13 points in the second quarter, giving the pair 21 of their team’s 26 first half points.
Newman managed to hang around despite some very poor shooting in the half, going into the locker trailing by six.
The Tigers got back-to-back buckets from Wilson to open the third period, pushing the advantage to 11 points.
Wilson would score all 11 over Dunham’s points in the quarter, but Newman would close the gap with an 11-0 run that ended the third period and rolled into the fourth.
Chris Lockett scored six of his 21 points, and Javon Ruffin scored nine of his 20 during that stretch that tied the score at 37.
Dunham would respond with a 6-0 run and Newman was unable to string together consecutive baskets the rest of the way.
“We’ve been in a lot of close games this year,” added Pixley. “The majority of the games we lost in the beginning of the season, were by five points or less. Just playing through that and coming out on the other end and learning how to win those games during the regular season…we just talked about how we’ve been here numerous times. It doesn’t matter that it’s the playoffs, it’s just another opportunity for us to deal with being in a close game and figure out how to win.”
Newman is still learning, and with its core of young players the Greenies could be a force in the future. Tonight just wasn’t their night.
“We’re just a young team right now and we made a few freshman mistakes,” added Livingston. “We didn’t execute in the fourth quarter and I thought that was the big difference. We thought we were in a good position to take the lead and pull it out, but you can’t make those kinds of mistakes against a team like Dunham.”
For Dunham, they have the opportunity to make right, what went wrong last season, when they fell in the final to Country Day.
They will face Episcopal in the Division III final, which will be scheduled for later in the week.
The two schools split their season series, one game apiece, with Dunham edging the Knights 109-100 in total points.