Hoggard’s boys basketball season comes to a close in fourth round
***Click here to view a gallery of 33 photos from the action***
A dream start turned into a nightmarish ending for the Hoggard boys basketball team Tuesday night inside Sheila Boles Gymnasium.
The fourth-seeded Vikings built an 11-point first quarter lead, but struggled to score consistently over the next three quarters in a 68-58 loss to No. 9 Lumberton in the fourth round of the NCHSAA 4A playoffs.
“We had so much success early on and they basically decided they weren’t going to let us run our stuff and we did not do a good job at all at playing out of that,” Hoggard coach Brett Queen said. “They were trapping us and playing off some of our guys. I thought we had some guys who were way too tentative and other guys who were way too impatient in those situations.”
Hoggard junior Brady Rankin led all scorers with 22 points. [Tim Hower/Coastal Preps]
Junior Brady Rankin scored the Vikings’ first 11 points in a five-possession span. Later in the quarter, four consecutive points from senior forward Luke Lamporte increased the lead to 17-6 with 1:03 left.
Rankin led all scorers with 22 points, including going 11 of 11 from the free throw line.
Hoggard still led by 11 with 4:58 left in the second quarter after Rankin buried a pair of technical foul free throws and the home team took a 29-23 lead into the locker room at halftime after senior guard Sabastian Haidera beat the buzzer with a 3-pointer.
Things went south for the Vikings in the second half, as they turned the ball over nine times and made only one 3-pointer after hitting four over the first 16 minutes.
“Them going small really affected us, because it was hard for us to match up with them,” Queen said. “It also disrupted our rhythm a little bit offensively.”
Lumberton closed the third quarter on a 9-2 run to build a 44-40 lead they would never relinquish. Hoggard cut the deficit to 44-43 on a three-point play from Jackson Massey on its first possession of the fourth quarter, but the Pirates answered with a 10-0 run to increase the margin to an insurmountable 11.
Senior Cam Blanks chipped in 13 points, Massey finished with nine and Lamporte added eight for the Vikings.
Luke Lamporte is one of the five Hoggard seniors who played in their final high school game. [Tim Hower/Coastal Preps]
“They were all really good leaders in different ways,” Queen said. “Jackson was a manager for us last year and was on our team this year and hardly ever played in games, but he was just as important as everybody else.
“Luke has improved as much as anybody I’ve ever coached. He went from getting cut his freshman year to winning games for us with the way he played. Cam, Jackson and Sabastian were three-year starters for us and won 58 total games in the last three years. They’ve been so much fun to coach and guys that put the program first and have done everything we’ve ever asked them to do.”
