Harnett Central celebrated its Senior Night by taking a pair of hard-fought Tri-County Six 3-A Conference varsity basketball contests over visiting Union Pines.

A pair of late free throws from sophomore Brittany Mills helped Harnett Central take an emotional 47-46 win over Union Pines in the girls game and a share of the conference championship.

“I told the girls tonight that our skills and their skills are a very even match,” said Harnett Central girls coach Chelsey Cabe. “In the third quarter when they started to pull away a little bit, I called a timeout and I told them, ‘They’re not better than us. They’re not outplaying us. We’re matched even. The difference is they’re getting every 50/50 ball and they’re getting offensive rebounds. You’ve got to stop letting them get the 50/50 balls. You’ve got to stop letting them get the rebounds. We’ve got to take that momentum back.’

When there was about six minutes left, I said, ‘If you’ll keep this momentum, we’re going to win this ball game.’ Heart, hustle and determination. They did not take plays off tonight. Defense or offense. Every person that went in pulled their workload and played their role. I really couldn’t be happier.”

Harnett Central and Union Pines finished the regular season tied for first place in the conference standings for the second straight year, but the Trojans won the drawing for seeding to take the No. 1 seed into next week’s conference tournament.

Sophomore Syniah McMiller had a double-double, with 13 points, 13 rebounds and five blocks to pace the Trojans (17-5, 9-1 TCSC).

Mills had nine points and four assists. Lyndsey Brewer had eight points and seven rebounds. Keanna Womble had eight points. Fayth Brown had five points. Lyanah Molyneaux had four points and four rebounds. Marcayla Jones had seven rebounds and seven assists.

“Lyndsey hit some big shots and I thought Lya Molyneaux played with confidence tonight,” Cabe said. “They didn’t think she (Molyneaux) was an outside offensive threat and she became one, so they couldn’t run that triangle and two on us anymore.”

Cabe praised senior Aleecya Williams for scrambling to recover multiple loose balls that either helped Central secure a turnover on defense or prevent a turnover on offense.

“There was a couple of fumbles that were a little bit scary,” Cabe said. “But even if there was a fumble, she never gave up on it.”

Sophomore Emma Ring and senior Cameron McCutcheon had 12 points apiece to lead the Vikings (16-7, 9-1).

Prior to the game, Harnett Central honored five seniors: Aleecya Williams, Fayth Brown, Keanna Womble, Marcayla Jones and Lyndsey Brewer.

“I wrote them all a card and I gave it to them before the game and I told them, ‘Each one of you has a different role on this team,’” Cabe said. “Lyndsey leads silently. Aleecya has determination and she’s never going to give up. Fayth, for some reason people fall in line and she influences people. Marcayla, her heart’s so big and she’s like the protector on the team. Everybody, she wants to take care of. And Keanna, how do you come back from an ACL injury (suffered at the beginning of the 2017-2018 season) and play like she did? You take all five of those girls and you put them together and that’s what you get. They have worked their tails off to be in the place to be a champion and they accomplished that tonight.”

The Vikings led the majority of the game, leading by as much as 10, at 39-29 late in the third quarter. But Central went on a 14-3 run that started with just under two minutes left in the third quarter and was capped by Womble scoring to give the Trojans their first lead of the game with 1:55 left in the fourth.

Late in the fourth, an Emily Bowbliss free throw gave Union Pines a 46-45 lead, but on the other end, Mills was fouled while attempting a layup and made both free throws to give the Trojans the lead with 14 seconds left.

“Clutch doesn’t even describe hitting those two free throws,” Cabe said. “Huge. We were 1-for-6 (at the free throw line) in the fourth quarter before that happened. I called Brittany over for a second (before her free throws) and told her, ‘This is what you dream of if you want to be a lead player.’ And she put them in.”

Coming out of a timeout with 8.8 seconds left, Union Pines was inbounding the ball underneath its own basket when Brewer deflected the inbounds pass into Brown’s hands for a steal. Brown was fouled and missed the front end of a one-and-one, but McMiller got the offensive rebound. She missed a put-back attempt, but rebounded her own miss and held on to run out the clock.

“After Triton got six offensive rebounds in that last possession against us (Tuesday), we ran six sprints for every single one of those offensive rebounds,” Cabe said. “Because at the end of the game, you don’t stop playing until the buzzer goes off.”

HC boys second in league

Harnett Central held off Union Pines for a 62-55 win in the boys game as the Trojans finished the regular season with a second-place finish in conference play.

“Nothing has come easy for us,” said Harnett Central boys coach Will Gage. “We’ve worked for everything that we’ve gotten. We made a couple of boneheaded plays near the end of the game that made it a game when it didn’t have to be one, but that’s on us. But I feel like we competed. We had a 12-point lead at one point and they cut it down to three and that would have been an easy time just to collapse. But I thought that we responded each time.”

The win snaps a four-game losing streak for the Trojans.

Senior Kasey Perkins had 21 points and senior Chase Mullins had 12 points to lead the Trojans (12-10, 7-3).

Anthony Tomlinson had eight points. Jaden Meadows had six points. Croix Shipman had five points. Trevonne Williams and Justin Perkins had three points apiece. Austin Swan and Tylor Davis had two points apiece.

“A couple of people made big plays for us at critical times,” Gage said. “Kasey had a heck of a game. Jaden Meadows responded with some big baskets for us. And I thought that Chase continued to rebound the ball and score it for us.”

Senior Kaedan Young had 15 points and senior Deontae Monroe and junior Tyreek McCoy had 11 points apiece to pace the Vikings (10-13, 4-6).

Prior to the game, Harnett Central honored five seniors: Kasey Perkins, Jaden Meadows, Chase Mullins, Hayden Smith and Kaleb Darden.

“We’ve gotten contributions from them in a number of different areas and they have all worked hard,” Gage said. “They have all kind of accepted their role and played hard when they’ve gotten in there. It’s a good group.”

With Central leading 44-38 at the end of the third quarter, Union Pines cut it to a one-possession game with a 4-1 run.

Holding a late 55-51 lead, Central closed out the game with a 7-4 run to secure the win.

Harnett Central won the junior varsity boys game 52-48. The JV girls game was the lone win on the night for Union Pines.

Both Harnett Central’s boys and girls teams will have a first-round bye in the conference tournament.

Harnett Central’s boys travel to Southern Lee on Tuesday to meet the winner of the game between the No. 3 and 6 seeds Monday.

“I think it’s big to get that bye,” Gage said. “Monday not being a school day for us (Harnett County has a teachers’ work day), it’s hard to get guys. They’re kind of out of sync when it’s not a school day. It really doesn’t matter who we draw, because it’s not going to be an easy day. We’ve got to just battle, because the last time you get to practice, you really have to prepare for two teams, because you really don’t know who’s going to win that particular night. We’ve just got to go in with a mindset that every possession is going to matter.”

Harnett Central will host the second round of the girls conference tournament, facing the winner of Monday’s game between the No. 4 and 5 seeds.

“Not just play against Union Pines like that, play against every team like that,” Cabe said. “I hope they see now why I get mad at them in games when we don’t excel in four quarters, because that’s what we can do in four quarters. That’s not mediocre, that’s a daggone good basketball team right there.”