LUMBERTON — In both halves of Thursday’s boys basketball game at Lumberton, visiting South View made a run at the Pirates. In both halves, the Pirates answered emphatically.

The latter of those runs down the stretch sent Lumberton to a 71-66 win in the first of two straight nights that the United-8 Conference foes will meet on the hardwood.

South View (10-8, 4-4 United-8) used a 23-8 run over an eight-minute stretch spanning the middle and late stages of the third quarter and the early to middle parts of the fourth, taking a 57-56 lead after a Chase Evans putback with 5:46 to go. Lumberton (11-7, 6-2 United-8) responded with a 10-3 run to take a 66-60 lead — one which may not have happened with this Pirates team as recently as a few weeks ago, showing tangible proof of the team’s growth, coach Bryant Edwards said.

“They got the lead, we called timeout, we drew something up and it was wide open and we executed it to perfection,” the fifth-year Pirates coach said. “A month ago, we could’ve never executed anything like that. For the show of the growth of the team, where they started and where we’re at now, we’re a different ballclub, and we’re playing decent basketball right now.”

Jaiden Shephard hit a putback to give Lumberton a 58-57 lead with 4:44 to go. After one Evans free throw for the Tigers tied the game, Dimetrious Jones scored on a layup for a 60-58 Pirates lead at the 4:02 mark.

“That (run) got us the edge and helped us win the game,” Jones said. “We stayed locked in and believed in each other, and I trusted my teammates.”

Shephard scored a layup-and-1 for the Pirates, then Brady Chavis hit a 3 for a 66-60 lead with 1:55 to go. Evans scored a pair of baskets in the final minute that got the Pirates within four, but Dimetrious Jones hit four free throws and brother Amare Jones hit another to ice the Pirates’ win.

Dimetrious Jones scored 27 points to lead the Pirates, including 16 as the team built a first-half lead.

“Whenever he’s on he can score in bunches,” Edwards said of his senior guard. “There ain’t no doubt about it. He’s definitely a spark that we needed on this team and he came at the right time, and the guys love playing with him. Whenever he’s able to pass the basketball like he did tonight in the fourth quarter and he’s able to hit a couple of open shooters, he’s really hard to guard. He definitely showed out for us tonight.”

“I was just staying locked in, trying to get my teammates involved, and at the same time just keep myself going so we could get the win,” Dimetrious Jones said.

Lumberton’s first-half answer resulted in a 45-34 halftime lead. The Pirates took a 24-13 lead with 1:01 left in the first quarter after hitting four 3s in quick succession, including a pair by Brady Chavis on back-to-back possessions, before South View made a 15-4 run to tie the game at 28-28, led by seven points in the span from Antrell Gilmore.

The Pirates closed the half with a 17-6 run, with six points from Dimetrious Jones and triples from Amare Jones and Chavis, to build their 11-point halftime advantage.

“Our whole outlook to how we’re going to play this year is we want to turn our defense into our offense and get quick shots, but get quick good shots,” Edwards said. “That’s what we’ve been doing as of lately. When we get open shooters, we had some guys make some shots tonight, spread the floor for us, and it enabled us to go on a few runs there in the first half.”

Chavis finished with 15 points on five 3-pointers, Shephard had 10 and Amare Jones scored eight for the Pirates.

Evans and Gilmore each scored 17 to lead the Tigers, with Anthony Farrior adding 13 points and Demarcus Spearman netting seven.

Lumberton won its fourth straight game overall and its 11th straight in the head-to-head matchup with South View, a streak dating back to 2015.

Thursday’s game was a makeup game from a January postponement, and comes one day before the team’s originally scheduled second meeting, which will be played Friday night in Hope Mills.

“We started the week going game by game, playing Jack Britt and South View is two big 4A games, and we want to be 3-0 through the week,” Edwards said. “We were focused on tonight, and we’re trying to get one more tomorrow. It’s going to be tough on the road, a 4A team that we’ve got to win to get into the playoffs.”

Late dry spell costs Lady Pirates

A scoring drought hit the Lumberton girls basketball team at just the wrong time Thursday against South View.

With the upset-minded Pirates leading by four early in the fourth quarter, they went over six minutes without a field goal to end the game, allowing South View to take the lead and ultimately win in a 46-40 decision.

“We just struggled staying aggressive,” Lumberton coach Ivy Johnson said. “They ran a triangle-and-two (defense) and took Gabby (Locklear) and Charley (Whitley) out, and we were kind of ‘oh my god, oh my god.’ It was just tough. We had some good attacks, some layups that didn’t go down, but we’ve just got to find in those moments, got to be able to get open, got to be able to make shots.

Lumberton (4-12, 2-6 United-8), which had led throughout most of the game, was tied 28-28 with South View (12-4, 7-1 United-8) at the end of the third quarter, and took a 32-28 lead with 6:28 left after baskets by Gabby Locklear and Andrea Brown. The Pirates didn’t make a field goal the rest of the way.

After Nahmiah Aekins’ traditional 3-point play got the Tigers within a point, two Adalyah Green-Boyd free throws gave South View a 33-32 lead with 5:53 remaining. Three more baskets through the middle stage of the period by Green-Boyd stretched the South View lead to 41-34 with 2:57 on the fourth-quarter clock.

Lumberton used free throws over the final minutes to get as close as a three-point deficit, trailing 41-38 with 48 seconds left after two Andrea Brown makes at the stripe. A South View travel gave the Pirates possession, and a 3-point attempt to tie the game was unsuccessful, before three free throws a Zaklera Gaillard layup over the final half-minute allowed South View to seal the outcome.

“They’re out there, they’re playing hard, we’ve just got to find the crucial moments where we’ve got to get the job doing,” Johnson said. “And they tried, it’s not like they’re not trying. We’ve just got to keep playing. That’s all we can do is to keep plugging away, and we’ve got to keep believing, which they’ve done a good job of that. They want it, they haven’t lost their drive, which is easy to do when you look in the win-loss column, and they’re still working hard and doing what they’ve got to do to get better.”

Aekins scored 13 points for South View to lead all scorers; Jordynn Parnell had 11 points for the Tigers, Green-Boyd scored eight with all of them coming in the fourth quarter and Makyla Drain added seven.

Locklear, Charley Whitley and BreAndrea Glover each scored nine points for the Pirates and Brown had eight.

“We definitely want a scoring balance, but we definitely want it to be up in double digits,” Johnson said. “Bre has started being a little more aggressive coming here lately. We need to get Andrea kind of rolling again, and Gabby’s been doing well the last few games. … Charley, she’s just the Energizer bunny; the girl has played almost every minute of most games, and she’s just a workhorse.”

Lumberton led 17-10 after a quarter behind eight first-quarter points from Whitley and four from Brown. South View used an 8-0 run to take an 18-17 lead with 2:58 left in the first half. Lumberton retook the lead at intermission after Brown and Leira Smith each hit baskets over the last 2:45 to make it a 21-18 game.

The Pirates led 24-20 after a Whitley triple at the 4:18 mark of the third; South View tied the score at 26-26 after Drain drained a 3 at the 1:09 mark. A Glover basket for Lumberton and two Parnell free throws for South View made it a 28-28 game when the third quarter expired.

Both sides could look to the free-throw line as a missed opportunity; the Tigers were 9-for-26 at the stripe after starting the game 0-for-11, while the Pirates were 8-for-18.

South View won its sixth straight game in the series against the Pirates. The teams meet again Friday in Hope Mills as part of a unique back-to-back set.

“The good thing about playing them back to back is, hey, there’s no other team in between that we’ve got to prep for,” Johnson said. “We know what they’re doing, they know what we’re doing. We’ve just got to go out and make a few adjustments from today, and I think tomorrow is definitely a winnable game for us.”