PEMBROKE — After Wednesday’s first-round Robeson County Shootout win over Purnell Swett, Fairmont boys basketball coach Montrell McNair touted his team’s depth, with seven Golden Tornadoes players scoring seven points or more in that contest.

The same was not the case in Friday’s semifinal against Red Springs. Instead, Landon Cummings and Tyrek Thompson broke away from the pack to lead the way, and led Fairmont into the tournament final with a 59-50 win over the Red Devils.

“Early on, we set the tone, and that kept us around, we built the lead and we made the stops we needed to make down the stretch to pull the game out,” Fairmont coach Montrell McNair said.

Fairmont (8-1) will face Pinecrest in the championship game at 8 p.m. Saturday at UNC Pembroke, the program’s first appearance in the tournament final since 2019, the longest such drought for Fairmont since the mid-2000s.

Cummings scored 25 points with eight rebounds for Fairmont and Thompson scored 13 points. The two were the only Golden Tornadoes players to score in the first half, with Cummings totaling 18 points at the break and all 13 of Thompson’s points coming in the first 16 minutes.

“We just came out and we had a bunch of momentum,” Cummings said. “We were the only ones hitting shots, so we just told them to find us at our spots. Shout out to to Gabe (Washington), the point guard, for getting us open, getting us to our spots.”

“That’s the best I’ve seen Tyrek shoot in a game,” McNair said. “It was exciting to see them go through the net, and I’m happy for him to see them go through the net because now that will give him more confidence to take those shots.”

While Fairmont never trailed after taking a 5-4 lead three minutes into the game, runs went back and forth throughout. The last one sealed the outcome.

After Red Springs cut the Golden Tornadoes’ lead to 46-44 with a Kaedon Porter free throw with 5:45 to go, the Red Devils were held to two field goals the rest of the way, with Fairmont holding a 13-6 advantage over the final minutes.

“The defense stepped up, locked in,” McNair said. “They were trying to isolate us on (Porter), so we had to contain him, keep him in front of us, and Makhi (Arthur) torched us all night getting into the paint. That was one of the points of emphasis in timeouts was to let those guys know we’ve got to keep them out of the paint and make them shoot jumpshots over hand, and pull the rebound and not give them second shots.”

A Josiah Billings putback, two free throws by Naishon Davis and a floater by Kaiden Filmore stretched Fairmont’s lead to 52-44 with 2:49 to go. After Porter hit a layup, Filmore hit another basket to match; Fairmont was only 5-for-10 at the free-throw line over the final two minutes, but that was enough to seal the win as Red Springs kept coming up empty.

“Because we couldn’t get a break and get over the hump to get the lead, it hurt us, because we exhausted so much energy to get back, and by the time we’d get back to our peak to try to get over, it falls back down,” Red Springs coach Glenn Patterson Jr. said. “Basketball is a game of runs, and that’s what both teams were doing, but Fairmont pulled it out, they had more stamina than us. That’s how they ended up winning, with more stamina.”

Fairmont led 14-4 after five minutes of play, with seven points from each of the night’s two Tornado stars; Red Springs closed the quarter on a 9-2 run behind three Porter baskets to make it 16-13 at the end of the opening stanza, then got within a point when Darren Wilkins opened the second-quarter scoring with a layup.

The Golden Tornadoes outscored the Red Devils 15-8 over the rest of the half, with Thompson hitting his second 3-pointer of the game and Cummings also hitting a triple in the stretch. Fairmont held a 31-23 lead at halftime.

Gabriel Washington hit a jumper 16 seconds into the second half to become the first Fairmont player outside of Cummings and Thompson to score, stretching the Fairmont lead to 33-23; Red Springs closed to 34-31 at the 4:32 mark of the quarter with an 8-1 run.

Naishon Davis hit two baskets, including a layup-and-1, to take its largest lead at 42-31. Red Springs roared back with a 15-6 run behind seven points from Arthur and five from Porter, to close to within two before Fairmont’s game-sealing run in response.

“I commend my guys, man; we played as hard as we could,” Patterson Jr. said. “Fairmont gets after it. I felt like we did a good job handling their pressure. (Porter) played great ball in the first half, keeping us in the game and attacking; Makhi did the same thing in the second half. He picked it up when (Porter) started getting fatigued, then Makhi started playing ball and taking over as well. We were just missing that third scorer. It was a great game, back and forth, championship atmosphere.”

Behind its top two, Fairmont got eight points and nine rebounds from Davis, Filmore scored five points in the last three minutes and Josiah Billings had seven rebounds.

Porter finished with 22 points and eight rebounds for the Red Devils, Arthur had 18 points and six rebounds, Wilkins scored five points and Justice McMillan pulled in seven boards.

With its eighth win, Fairmont has already surpassed last year’s seven-win total, doing so just nine games into the season.

“It just proves how hard they worked this summer, the dedication they had, the working out in the summer, lifting,” McNair said. “And they believe in each other, and they’re playing together more as a team.”

Another big chapter in the Golden Tornadoes’ resurrection could be written Saturday night if Fairmont can win its eighth Shootout title, which would tie Lumberton and Purnell Swett for the most in tournament history.

“That was one of the goals coming into the season, we knew we wanted the Shootout,” Cummings said. “We feel like we’re the best in the county, so we feel like this is our title to win.”