Palmetto holds off Sarasota with defensive pressure

Emmanuel Lambright was a one-man wrecking crew.

Consequently, Sarasota High School enjoyed a double-digit halftime lead in Wednesday’s Class 8A-District 11 boys basketball semifinal.

Then, something changed.

Palmetto assistant coach James Bacon gave a speech and made a little tweak to the Tigers’ defense in head coach Reggie Bellamy’s absence due to illness. Both moves saw the Tigers roar back, then they held on in the game’s frantic final possession to squeeze out a 54-52 victory at home Wednesday.

Palmetto heads to top-seeded Lakewood Ranch for Friday’s district championship at 7 p.m.

“I just told them to take a deep breath,” Bacon said.

Lambright, a former Sarasota Christian and Cardinal Mooney standout, shredded the Tigers during the first half.

He tallied 21 of Sarasota High’s 36 first-half points as the Sailors led by 13. Those buckets came against Dequan Kirce, a senior power forward who later provided a key free throw in the game’s closing seconds.

So Bacon switched Kirce off Lambright and inserted Jason Spicer to guard the Sailors’ scoring machine.

“Jason’s a football guy, so he’s a little bit faster than me,” said Kirce, who finished with 17 points. “So he just told me to help him out on the backside. ... We realized he couldn’t go left, so Jason made sure he pushed him left and I said, ‘I’ve got your backside.’”

Spicer limited Lambright to two field goals and six points in the second half.

The rest of the Tigers (13-7) pounced in the new-look defense.

The Sailors (8-19) were held scoreless for roughly seven minutes between the third and fourth quarters, and they committed nine turnovers — six consecutive — during the scoreless stretch.

Meanwhile, Palmetto’s offense closed the third quarter on a 12-0 run to pull within one heading into the fourth quarter.

Then a crushing blow to Sarasota’s hopes came when Lambright fouled out after following his shot in a rebound attempt with 4 minutes, 8 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter.

Palmetto’s Jermaine Graham, who netted 15 points, scored five points in less than a minute to give the hosts a 50-47 lead shortly after Lambright fouled out.

“He’s their leader, so they lost a little energy and we gained some when he left the game,” Bacon said.

An Andrew Worrington 3-pointer leveled things for Sarasota with 1:43 left.

Palmetto’s Kenny Brown converted a layup, while Spicer dropped the front end of a one-and-one free throw to rebuild the Tigers’ three-point lead with 35 seconds remaining.

After Sarasota closed to within one on two foul shots, Kirce needed to make one to give the Tigers a two-point lead with 8.9 seconds remaining.

“It’s a lot of pressure, but we practice zoning out the crowd,” Kirce said. “And (we) make noise in practice to simulate that kind of noise.”

He misfired on the second attempt, but Palmetto corralled the loose ball before a turnover gave Sarasota one last crack at either overtime or an upset victory.

An upset over the second-seeded Tigers would have been Sarasota’s second in the district tournament after it knocked off No. 3 Braden River on Monday.

However, Worrington never got a clean look in the final 4.8 seconds.

Palmetto’s defense swarmed to him and Kirce stripped him as time expired, even at the behest of the Sarasota side of the roughly 80 fans in attendance that pleaded for a foul call.

“I think it goes both ways,” Bacon said. “I think we got some missed calls on our end, got some missed calls on their end. There was a couple travels I felt could’ve been called that didn’t get called. So I think, in the end ... it always evens itself out.”

This story was originally published February 9, 2017 at 12:08 AM with the headline "Palmetto holds off Sarasota with defensive pressure."