Everything came unglued at the end Friday for North Murray’s boys basketball team.
The Mountaineers had a chance to reach the Region 7-2A tournament championship and take on Sub-region 7B-2A rival Dade County, but they squandered that opportunity as Coosa pulled out a 59-53 win at the Northwest Georgia Trade and Convention Center.
North Murray will play Calhoun — the 7B-2A No. 4 seed and a 70-58 loser to Dade County in Friday’s other boys semifinal — in today’s 4 p.m. consolation game at the trade center. Coosa and Dade County, who earlier this week won the sub-region tournament titles, will face off at 7 p.m. for the boys region championship.
On the girls side, Calhoun won 47-29 against River Ridge and Model beat Dade County 48-37 in Friday’s semifinals.
Model and Calhoun, also the two sub-region champs, will play for the girls region championship at 8:30. River Ridge, the No. 3 seed from 7A-2A, and Dade County, the No. 3 seed from 7B, will play for third place at 5:30 p.m.
The Mountaineers (20-9), Sub-region 7B-2A’s No. 2 seed, were in a battle with Coosa (23-4), the 7A-2A champions, for three quarters.
When one side seemed to get the upper hand, the other team countered with a quick run to shift the momentum. North Murray led 39-38 entering the fourth quarter, but from there, it was a slippery slope.
Coosa went on a 14-3 run over the next five minutes to build its biggest lead of the game at 51-42.
“That spurt in the fourth, I think that was the difference,” Coosa coach John McFather said. “It kept going back and forth, and we were sluggish to open the game ...”
North Murray coach Eric Bishop said the Mountaineers did not play up to their potential and allowed Coosa to stick around.
“Not taking anything away from (Coosa), but we are capable of more than we were actually producing,” he said. “It was back and forth and back and forth, and it was usually a situation where we made a goofy mistake or turned the ball over.
“... We made a ton of turnovers, had a ton of missed layups, and any time you do those things, the score will reflect it. And I think that’s what allowed (the game) to stay so tight.
“If we had done the things early on that we needed to do, it wouldn’t have been that way.”
North Murray defeated Armuchee 59-44 on Thursday to advance to the semifinals and secure the school’s first-ever berth to the Georgia High School Association Class 2A state tournament. Getting that historic win for a program only in its second year in varsity athletics might have set the Mountaineers up for a letdown against Coosa.
“The win (Thursday) got them excited and focusing on that,” Bishop said, “and not necessarily focusing on the next game.”
Zach Vess led North Murray’s effort with a double-double performance — a team-high 16 points to go with 11 rebounds. Brady Swilling had 14 points and nine rebounds, Austen Horn added 12 points and Tyler Duckett contributed eight points. Mountaineers point guard Gavin Ledford recorded eight rebounds, four assists and four steals.
“He played great tonight,” Bishop said.
While North Murray used its post game as the primary source of offense, Coosa countered it with its guard-post combination of Tyler Bradley and Slade Shumate. Shumate scored 18 points, six coming from two 3-point shots, and Bradley added 17 points and seven rebounds.
The Mountaineers finished 8-for-18 from the free-throw line, while Coosa was 9-for-12.
In a telling tale of how the first three quarters went, Christian McFather hit one of his three 3-pointers to give Coosa a 32-29 lead in the third quarter and Horn responded on the following possession with a trey of his own.
“It was a war,” coach McFather said. “North Murray has a good team. Their strength is obviously rebounding and throwing (the ball) inside. ... They’re a hard, blue-collar type team. My hat’s off to them. We were excited to win, but they made us fight.”
• Dade County boys 70, Calhoun 58: The Wolverines used a big second quarter to break away and advance to the title game.
Dade County (22-5), which trailed 17-13 after the first quarter, went on a 20-9 second-quarter run to take a halftime lead. Cole Birchfield scored 14 of his 24 points in the period.
Clay Johnson had 14 points for Calhoun (11-6).
• Calhoun girls 47, River Ridge 29: Jordan Livesay and Parker Nayman each scored 10 points for River Ridge (20-9), but were outdone by Taylor Palmer’s game-high 18 points for Calhoun.
• Model girls 48, Dade County 37: Carla Clemmons had 15 points to lead Model, which led for most of the game.
Ansley Chilton scored 13 points for Dade County (23-4).
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