Seventy-First basketball’s historic season ends in NCHSAA 3A state title game

WINSTON SALEM - Seventy-First ended its illustrious season with a disappointing performance in the NCHSAA 3A championship game, falling to the two-time 3A state champion Central Cabarrus 90-62 on Friday.

Turnovers. Points in the paint. Fast break points. Those three things killed the Falcons in the opening stages of the game, and they found themselves down 8-0 just two minutes into it. And Central Cabarrus never looked back.

"I told them in that first timeout that this is it -- our motto is fight back -- and that's just life, we can't just let anybody just jump on us and we lay down," second-year Seventy-First coach Jeremy Ingram said.

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After a 24-point first half, the Falcons went down 50-24 and faced the largest deficit in the Ingram era.

Seventy-First went into the half with 13 total turnovers, one steal, and gave up 28 points in the paint.

But all hope wasn't lost for the Falcons after intermission, coming into the third quarter on a 6-0 run, and a 21-point quarter, but it wasn't nearly enough.

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Jacquez Foster scored a team-high with 15 points in 28 minutes. Mylon Campbell, the 3A East Most Outstanding Player, finished his last high school game with 14 hard-earned points and six rebounds, and DeAndre Nance had 12 points and four rebounds.

The Falcons were plagued with 24 turnovers on the night, 52 points given up in the paint and 12 second-chance points.

"That's the game -- 24 turnovers," Ingram said postgame. "Against a team this good, it's impossible to overcome that.”

Despite the Falcons not capping off the impressive 28-3 season with a championship, they put up a solid effort and did what they could to compete against the well-oiled Central Cabarrus team.