As the basketball season comes to a close, two local rivals faced off one final time before postseason play.
As the end of the 2021-2022 basketball season nears a conclusion, Plant City and Durant faced off again last week.
In the early contest, Durant’s girls put together a big win over Plant City to sweep the season series while Plant City’s boys were later able to escape with another narrow victory over the Cougars to sweep the two-game season series of their own.
In the girls’ game, the contest was never in doubt as Durant raced out to a 91-18 victory led by their core group of junior starters. Miani Mejia led the way with 24 points, Ki’Ajanae Gordon followed with 23 points, then Maggie Lauber with 20 points and Sophia Flair added double digit scoring with 14 points of her own.
The win moved Durant to 14-3 on the season and are now 4-0 in district play, securing the 7A District 7 top seed as the district tournament approaches.
For the boys, Durant was able to control most of the contest, starting with a 14-11 lead at the end of the first quarter. Through the second, the Cougars were able to hold steady on their advantage and while Plant City continued to dig themselves out of potential trouble, they were unable to ever retake a lead in the first half.
Durant held a 24-18 lead with six minutes remaining in the first half but a pair of free throws from Mike Bell cut the lead to four. On their next possession, a big three pointer brought the score to 24-23 but Durant answered right back with a transition layup and a three pointer of their own from sophomore Austin White to jump right back out in front by six once again.
Plant City sophomore Chase Dexter did his part, scoring the game’s next four points to bring the Raiders within two in the final seconds of the half but Durant remained relentless through the buzzer as junior Xavier Peavy was able to drive the lane and finish the finger-roll layup as time expired to take a 31-27 lead into halftime.
Durant started the third quarter on a 9-6 run and built their largest lead of the night at 40-33, but Plant City’s D.J. Haynes responded with the Raiders’ next six points to once again bring the game within one score. As Durant had seemed to do all night, they had a response as senior Douglas Blackwood sank a three of his own for the 43-37 lead.
After trailing 45-43 as the third quarter came to a close, the Raiders were finally able to tie the contest on their first possession of the fourth to kick off a run – and a lead – that they wouldn’t relinquish.
After three quarters of battling back, Plant City got hot and outscored the Cougars 23-17 in the game’s final period to take the 66-62 victory over Durant, winning both of their meetings this season by a combined five points.
“We just had to be in there,” head coach Billy Teeden said. “We’ve kind of given some games away this year in the fourth quarter, so it was nice to see us take a game in the fourth quarter. That was good.”
It wasn’t a perfect game from the Raiders, but Plant City found a way to utilize their depth and battle through the absence of starting forward Elijah Dawson for the win, moving to 12-5 on the season. And perhaps no one exemplified that next-man-up mentality more than Dexter, stepping in and scoring his first 10 points of the season while hitting five of his six shots from the field when the Raiders needed it most.
“We were without Dawson today. He’s our big guy, a starter, and he’s home sick, so we were kind of trying to figure out who to dial up in the rotation to mix it up a bit,” Teeden said. “I was very pleased with our sophomore Chase Dexter, he had a huge game for us and really stepped up… That’s our makeup. We have almost four guys who average double figures so it doesn’t have to fall on one guy and we were in a little shooting slump so it was nice to get out of it with a rivalry win.”
