BY BRIAN HAMILTON
SEYMOUR – The last time Fulton played a season where it did not advance to the district championship game was the 2013-14 season, when the Falcons lost to Carter in the district semis. With the Hornets looking to do the same on Saturday night, Fulton would have none of it, disposing of Carter 75-56.
It looked as if Fulton was going to win by 30-plus early in the fourth quarter, but some lapses in execution allowed Carter to make a couple runs and get the score to within 20 at the end of the game.
Fulton’s Nick Steen (10) goes up for a basket during the Falcons’ 75-56 win over Carter. Steen finished with a game-high 28 points. Photo by Brian Hamilton
“We were playing to the scoreboard, which is a dangerous thing to do, ” Fulton coach Jody Wright said after the game. “We call it playing to the standard. The scoreboard doesn’t factor in how hard you play. You get guys standing around watching and you just can’t do that. That’s not acceptable, regardless of what the score is. I was a little upset, but we figured it out.”
Carter drew first blood in the matchup, but Chaz Wood would answer with a basket to tie the game at 2-2. Wood would hit back-to-back three-pointers to give Fulton an 8-4 lead with five minutes left in the first quarter, as the sophomore point guard scored the first eight points for the Falcons.
Rejuan Womble scored on a floater to put Fulton ahead 10-4. Albie Harris followed that with a steal and layup to make the score 12-4, capping a 10-0 Falcon run.
Carter would finally end the drought when Waylon Tummel hit a layup to cut the Fulton lead to 12-6 with 2:45 left in the first. The Hornets would then go on a 6-0 run after a layup by Liam Zimmerman and a jumper by Grayson Watson trimmed the Falcons’ lead to 12-10 with just under two minutes left in the quarter.
Nick Steen drove and was fouled on a layup. The junior converted the three-point play to give Fulton a 15-10 lead. Zimmerman would hit a layup to cut the Carter deficit to 15-12 with 58 seconds left. A floater by Steen with 10 seconds left would give the Falcons a 17-13 lead after one quarter.
Bryson Pressley opened the second quarter with a three, which pulled Carter to within 17-16, but Fulton embarked on an 8-0 run after that to lead 25-16 with 5:15 remaining in the first half.
Carter would pull back to within 25-21 after a three-pointer by Watson and a layup by Andrew Brown. Nick Steen answered on the other end, however, converting a basket and foul for a 28-21 Fulton lead with 4:23 left. The Falcons would later extend the lead to 31-21 with just over three minutes to go.
A jumper by Watson would make the score 31-23 with 2:12 left. The Hornets would cut the deficit to 31-25, but Fulton would go on a 10-2 run to close the half, as Albie Harris nailed a three with 18 seconds left to send the Falcons to intermission leading 41-27.
Wyatt Trull scored and converted an old-fashioned three-point play to pull Carter to within 45-32 early in the third quarter. A Steen layup would later push the Fulton lead to 50-32 and the lead would swell to 20 when Steen put back a miss to make the score 54-34 with 3:36 left in the third quarter.
Fulton would string together a 12-0 run in the quarter to put the Falcons ahead 62-34 when Tazarius Burns made a layup with just over one minute remaining. Womble made a tough layup with four seconds left to send Fulton to the final period with a 65-36 lead.
The Falcons took their largest lead of the game early in the fourth quarter when Chaz Wood scored a layup off the inbounds pass to make the score 67-36. Carter would answer, however, by going on an 10-0 run to cut the deficit to 67-46 with 5:50 remaining.
Steen scored a layup on the next Fulton possession to stretch the lead to 69-46. Chaz Wood hit a layup to make the score 71-48 with just under five minutes to go.
Carter’s Waylon Tummel and Porter Sharp hit a pair of threes late in the game to make the score look more respectable, but Fulton would go on to win 75-56 and advance to Tuesday’s championship game.
Nick Steen led all scorers with 28 points, while Chaz Wood finished with 19. Rejuon Womble added eight for the Falcons.
“Chaz has been in a little bit of a shooting slump, just because he wasn’t taking really good shots, ” Wright said. “He is a great shooter. Like tonight, he got really good looks and he saw a couple go down then you’re shooting fish in a barrel at that point. We needed a good night out of him. We’ve got to have him for us to make a postseason run. We’ve gotta have other guys step up besides Nick (Steen).”
Grayson Watson led Carter with 19 points, while Waylon Tummel finished with nine. Liam Zimmerman also chipped in with eight points for the Hornets.
Fulton (19-9) will meet rival Austin-East (18-11) for the district championship on Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m., while Carter (15-16) will face Seymour (19-9) in the third-place game at 6 p.m.