Davison makes layup with less than 7 seconds left to lift Blue Devils

THOMASVILLE — Nick Davison patiently waited for his moment.

Despite a ball screen failing, Davison attacked the baseline, made a layup with less than 7 seconds in the fourth to break a tie and helped lift Escambia County to a 35-33 Class 4A Subregional victory over Thomasville earlier tonight.

The game was tied at 33-33 and ECHS elected for a timeout with 25.8 seconds after Dimitri Wiggins got a steal at halfcourt some 13 seconds earlier.

The Blue Devils held the ball, waiting for the opportune moment. Davison started charging the left side with around 11 seconds to go, received contact from a couple defenders and made the bucket.

ECHS coach Erin Straughn said the situation called for Davison to get the ball.

“I wanted Nick coming off the ball screen,” Straughn said. “In that situation, they rejected the ball screen. Nick’s been stepping up a lot these last few days.”

With the narrow win, the Blue Devils improve to 18-10 on the season, and advance to the south regional in Dothan. ECHS plays at 1:30 p.m. Saturday against Montgomery Catholic in the regional semifinals.

ECHS scored its lowest point total since mid December of this season against a team that played good defense throughout.

In the end, the Blue Devils (18-10) made some essential free throws in the last 3:24 of the game to come out on top. For the game, Atmore was 10-of-14 from the line.

“It was a win,” Straughn said. “I’ll take a win over a loss every day, even an ugly win. We’ve got to bounce back. We were a totally different team than on Saturday (a 68-61 loss to Monroe Co. in the area championship). We’ve got to play our game through all four quarters.”

Thomasville ended the third period on a short, but effective 4-0 run to cut the game to 29-27 with ECHS leading.

Kerry Sims started the fourth with a jumper for THS to tie the game up.

Throughout the second half, shots didn’t fall for the Blue Devils, however, a good block by Darrien Adams with the game still tied gave Atmore some needed momentum.

Devon Robinson’s one-of-two on a one-and-one try spurt the Blue Devils to a 30-29 lead with 4:11 to go. He later made a pair to push the game to 32-29 at 3:24.

Thomasville’s Givondrick Westry got in a jumper off of a pass from Rashad Mosley, but ECHS still held a 32-31 lead. The Tigers took a 33-32 lead off of KeShwan Kellery’s layup.

THS then wen ton to miss some key free throws, and Escambia County’s Lue Williams  made the front end of a one-and-one to tie it at 1:13.

ECHS led 19-17 at halftime after a scorekeeper’s error was corrected.

THS finished the first half on a 7-2 run in the last 3:59 of the second period.

Robinson led the Blue Devils with 13 points. Williams chipped in 7 points, and Abrams had 6 points.

Keller led THS with 13 points, and Mosley had 9.