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| Leesburg basketball players Undra Mitchem and D'Mauri Jones led the Yellow Jackets to Lake/Sumter County Championships tournament title. (Joshua C. Cruey, Orlando Sentinel) | | |
By Joe Williams, Orlando Sentinel
10:34 p.m. EST, December 17, 2011
LEESBURG — A sluggish first-quarter by Leesburg in Saturday night's championship game of the fifth annual Lake/Sumter County Championship boys basketball tournament, gave Mount Dora hope.
Hope that it could hang with last year's
FHSAA Class 4A state champs.
But that hope was fleeting.
Leesburg (7-2) put together a 12-0 run during a 4-minute, 42-second span in the second quarter to take a 30-19 lead and the Yellow Jackets never looked back on their way to a 71-46 victory.
"I was concerned," Leesburg coach Marcel Thomas said. "I knew if we came out sluggish, Mount Dora is a scrappy team and they would take advantage of it. They battled us."
It's the second consecutive Lake/Sumter championship by Leesburg after Clermont East Ridge won the first three.
The Hurricanes (5-6) showed great effort — best illustrated by a play Kenny Dupont made in the third quarter — diving over his team's bench and landing on his stomach between the bench and the bleachers trying to save a ball from going out of bounds.
Dupont, the Hurricanes' leading scorer this season, averaging 20 points a game, was in foul trouble most of the game, picking up his third personal with 2:31 left in the second quarter and spending the rest of the half on the bench.
That third foul came in the midst of the Leesburg run that was started with a jumper by Undra Mitchem with 4:30 left. It didn't end until Mount Dora's Treybean Jones scored with 10 seconds left.
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Before that run, Mount Dora had shown some resiliency, coming back from an 11-3 deficit to tie the game at 11 before the end of the first quarter. Two 3-pointers by Zachariah Frazier helped the Hurricanes open a 17-13 lead with 6:31 left in the second quarter. Leesburg opened a 19-17 lead, but a basket by Dupont with 4:52 left, tied the game at 19.
In the third-place game, Umatilla's Duke Streeter hit a bank shot with 15.2 seconds remaining and then blocked a shot on a drive for the tying basket by Cory Evanson as the Bulldogs (5-6) defeated Groveland South Lake 68-66.
The victory came after South Lake (1-7) managed to fight its way back into the game after halftime. The Eagles opened up as much as a 57-50 lead with 7:16 remaining on seven consecutive points by Evanson in a 10-second span. Five of those points came on free throws.
"We came out in the first half and didn't play the kind of game we want to play," South Lake coach Scott Cornman said. "We got in the locker room at halftime and talked about battling back."
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Streeter led the Bulldogs with 19 points and Jess Hall had 15. South Lake was led by Dario Fletcher with 18.
"We are having the kind of season where we are having to learn how to win," Umatilla coach Jason Guido said. "I believe our guys are starting to believe that we can win. I think we are capable of beating anybody.
"Every time we win, every time we beat back a team that is coming back, every time we come from behind, is showing them they can win."
jrwilliams@tribune.com or 352-742-5921.
Resources
Joe Williams
Sentinel Staff
Orlando Sentinel
December 14, 2011
Leesburg Public Library
http://www.ci.leesburg.fl.us/library/
Article provided by:
Gerald Lacey
Staff Writer
Carver Heights Quarterback Club
1986 Varsity Jackets Football Lettermen #82
Class of 1988 Leesburg High School
leesburgyellowjacketsfootball@yahoo.com
www.leesburgyellowjacketsbasketball.com
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