Distracted?
At times Mount Tabor looked that way during a 61-44 win over East Forsyth last night in the first round of the Class 4-A playoffs.
But the 26-1 Spartans had a good reason if they indeed weren't mentally sharp. On Wednesday night they will get another shot at Charlotte Vance, the team that has had Mount Tabor's number for each of the last two seasons.
Vance (24-3) came from behind in the fourth quarter to knock Mount Tabor out of the Western Regional in the 2008 semifinals, and the Cougars blew out the Spartans in the 2007 sectional playoffs.
Vance, which opened with a win over Northwest Guilford last night, will play at Mount Tabor on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in a semifinal of West Sectional 1.
"Hopefully we have our legs under us, we will go short (in practice today), and hopefully, we will be ready for Vance, which we have been waiting a full year to play," Coach Andy Muse said. "The bottom line is you play one game to win and go to the next one. When you play a wild card and it's a team that was fourth or fifth in their conference and we were first, it was hard to get up for this game."
The physical Eagles were happy to be in the playoffs according to their Coach, Brant Short, and they threw caution to the wind in challenging the Spartans with a half-court trap and rebounding tenacity.
After opening a five-point lead in the first quarter, the Spartans never got any real separation from the Eagles until running off the first seven points of the fourth quarter to stretch an eight-point lead to 15 with six minutes left.
On a night when the guard-oriented Spartans hit 4 of 19 3-point attempts, senior C.J. Harris -- who has signed with Wake Forest -- bailed them out with an assortment of slithering drives to the basket to finish with 24 points. Mike Grace added 13 points for the Spartans and Greg Jackson scored 10.
Harris hit his only 3-pointer of the game 20 seconds into the fourth quarter, Josh Hicks followed with a layup off a turnover, then the Spartans' zone trap forced another turnover that led to a layup by Grace for a 51-36 lead with six minutes left.
The Spartans built the lead to 21 with two minutes left.
"We were thrilled to play a great team such as Tabor," Short said. "That's what we wanted.
"Every time you turn around you have to face their defensive intensity. Over time it does wear on you. A lot of people talk about their offense, but they get a lot of points off their defense and it wears on you, physically first and then mentally, they break you down a little bit."
Muse said he certainly wasn't happy with the offensive performance, but was pleased to hold East to 44 points -- an effort that included holding Danny O'Brien of East to only two.
"They slowed us down, trapped us on the side a little bit and our shots didn't fall the way they normally do," Muse said. "But we turned up the heat in the third quarter and made the runs we needed to win the game.
"I don't think we were making the extra passes to get good shots. We didn't play as a team on the offensive end tonight, which is the first time in a while. So I am glad C.J. showed up and did what he was supposed to do and take over the game."
When asked how he would use his one off day to prepare for Vance, Muse smiled.
"We have been preparing for this game for six weeks," he said.
■ Mason Linker can be reached at 727-7324 or at mlinker@wsjournal.com.
East Forsyth 11 12 13 8 -- 44
Mount Tabor 16 14 14 17 -- 61
East Forsyth (10-14): McKeever 7, Caron 5, Warren 2, Gwyn 16, O'Brien 2, Hopkins 7, Sides 2, Walker 3
Mount Tabor (26-1): Grace 13, Harris 24, Hicks 9, Simpson 3, Jackson 10, Alpeter 2
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