Fulton point guard Edward Lacey (4) looks for an open lane against Wooddale’s 6-foot-8 Chandler Lawson (far left) and 6-8 Jonathan Lawson (far right). — Photo: Charles Pulliam.
BY JESSE SMITHEY
MURFREESBORO – The turnovers kept mounting.
And mounting.
And mounting for the Fulton boys’ basketball team.
By the time they stopped, Wooddale’s star player — 6-foot-8 Chandler Lawson — was doing a celebratory cartwheel at halfcourt because the final horn had just sounded.
Fulton’s 15 second-half turnovers did in the Falcons’ hope of a fourth state title, and they dropped the Class AA state championship, 59-46, at Middle Tennessee State’s Murphy Center.
Fulton hangs its hat on defense, too, but could only muster two steals and 10 Wooddale turnovers. Fulton wound up with 23 turnovers. Its 18-game win streak was snapped, as it claimed state runner-up for the second consecutive season.
The Falcons have three titles all-time and six runner-up finishes.
“Crucial. Crucial. And it’s not like we haven’t seen it,” Fulton coach Jody Wright said of Wooddale’s trap. “We saw kind of the same thing against Mitchell (in the quarterfinals). Mitchell didn’t have the length these guys have.
“Too many empty possessions.”
Meanwhile, Wooddale (33-4) won its first basketball state title in the school’s history.
Lawson won tournament MVP. The Oregon signee finished Saturday with 16 points and 11 rebounds. His 6-8 sophomore brother, Jonathan, had 16 points and seven rebounds.
Trey Davis led Fulton (28-5) with 19 points Saturday. Edward Lacey pitched in 10. Both made the all-tournament team, as did senior Deshawn Page.
Fulton opened a seven-point lead (30-23) by scoring the first four points of the second half on slashes to the basket by Davis and Page.
Chandler Lawson erased that with eight points in a 10-0 run feature two and-1, three-point plays. The latter put Wooddale ahead 33-30 with 4:14 left in the third. He had just four points in the first half.
“My dad always said they were going to be a physical team, just play through the contact. Use the backboard and focus on the layup,” said Lawson. “When I got those two and-1s, the momentum got on our side.”
The Cardinals then dialed up the defensive pressure on Fulton’s backcourt, and those turnovers led to four easy points and a 41-34 lead.
A 3 from Trey West with 30 seconds left in the third minimized the damage, though. Fulton’s deficit was just four points going into the fourth.
Wooddale’s pressure continued into the next four minutes, as Fulton opened the fourth with three turnovers and just two points. The Falcons trailed 45-39 with 4:21 to play, and all signs pointed to a Wooddale title.
Then came the punctuation — Lawson’s emphatic dunk with 3:05 remaining that gave the Cardinals a 50-41 advantage. And that lead stretched to 12 with 90 seconds to play.
Fulton shot just 35 percent and scored 20 points in the second half.
5STAR PHOTOS: Fulton vs. Wooddale (Class AA state championship)
Wright didn’t like the start of the game, either, and after just 71 seconds called his first timeout to refocus the Falcons’ minds after letting Wooddale jump to a quick 4-0 start. He felt like Fulton was rushing its possessions and wanted them to slow down. It worked.
Fulton led at the break 26-23, overcoming a six-point deficit after the first eight minutes thanks to 10 second-quarter points from Lacey.
His first 3 of the cut Wooddale’s lead to 21-19. His second put the Falcons ahead 22-21 with 3:25 left in the half.
Fulton outrebounded the larger Wooddale, 16-14, in the first half and shot 50 percent from the 3-point line, as Trey Davis sank a pair of treys en route to eight first-half points.
The Falcons darted out more to open the second half but couldn’t sustain it.
“We had a good second quarter and got the lead and then got a good start (in the second half),” said Wright. “I think we lost our focus a little bit (after halftime), and they made some tough shots. But, this was not a team that we wanted to run and hide.
“My goal was, at the media timeout (in the fourth), to be within four or five points. I think it was a six-point game. So we were where we needed to be.”