Allatoona Loses in Overtime

The Allatoona High School boys basketball team had plenty of excuses it could’ve relied upon for failing to hold an early 14-2 first-quarter lead against Mays Friday afternoon.

One of those excuses could’ve been fatigue from its 57-42 loss against Carrollton Thursday in a game that didn’t end until 10:30 p.m., and then having to come back to play at 2:30 p.m. in a game that decided the third-place finisher for the Lake City Classic Basketball Tournament.

But fourth-year Buccaneer coach Markus Hood refused to use such excuses after the tough 61-59 overtime loss.

He instead pointed out Allatoona (9-4) hitting only 6-of-19 free throws for the game, including 2 of 10 in the fourth and overtime periods combined. He also noted losing a 33-20 halftime lead after by being outscored 15-7 in the third quarter as the biggest factors for his team’s collapse.

“We’re not making excuses,” Hood said. “We were sluggish in the second half. We’re up by 13 at half and our players are playing well and that bad word – complacent – came up. We became complacent and Mays became hungry. It was back and forth down the line and now we’re in a war … they just got the last shot.”

Mays senior forward Nigel Massey sealed the thrilling victory for the Raiders (3-7) when he went down the left baseline and nailed a 5-foot jump shot with 2.6 seconds remaining in overtime to give Mays a 61-59 lead.

Massey then clinched the win when he caught Allatoona senior Ryan King’s full-court pass to Dimychael Ross as time expired.

“We were running out of time and the baseline was open,” Massey said of his game-winner. “He played the jump shot and he closed that pretty strong, so I jab stepped and drove to the hole.”

Massey, who was one of four Raider players to reach double digits in scoring with 10 points, said he knew Allatoona was going to pass the ball to Ross to try to win the game.

“They kept throwing the ball the whole game to (Ross) and they didn’t have much time, so they threw it up to him to attack the basket but I jumped in the way,” Massey said. “It felt exhilarating.”

Ross led Allatoona in scoring with a game-high 20 points. This included calmly nailing a 3-pointer with 25 seconds left in regulation to force  overtime and knot the score at 56-all.

Buccaneers senior guard Will Grant added 14 points and sophomore Daniel Fowler had nine points.

“We were up by 12 in the first half, but we got too comfortable with the lead,” Allatoona senior guard Cody Washington said. “After we lost to Carrollton, and a loss like that – being up by 12 points – it just kills you because we worked so hard in the first half.”

Junior guard Jaylen Smith led Mays with 14 points, freshman Ayinde Russell had 13 points and senior Delante Warner chipped in 10 points to round out the Raiders’ balanced scoring attack.