OAKLAND — When Southern’s leading scorers Jacob Brown and Graham Harvey went to the bench for an extended period with foul trouble, the Rams’ reserves did their part.
Brown scored 16 points and hit four 3-pointers in the first half to power Southern to a 30-18 lead, but he and Harvey picked up their third fouls soon after, prompting Southern to turn to a lineup with little offensive firepower.
Southern’s reserves managed just two points during the period but played hard defensively and steadied the ship, and by the time Brown and Harvey returned, the Rams still held a seven-point lead.
Alec Van Scheetz hit a crucial 3-pointer late, Harvey put the nail in the coffin with a midrange dagger in the final two minutes, and second-ranked Southern fended off Mountain Ridge, 56-47, on Monday night at Ram Arena.
“We played really well in the first half,” Southern head coach Hunter Broadwater said. “Probably one of our best defensive halves of the year. Then we got into a little bit of foul trouble, and I thought our juniors came in and defended their butts off. They really helped us defensively a lot.”
Southern upped its record to 13-7 overall and 6-1 in the Western Maryland Athletic Conference. The Rams have an opportunity to win the league outright win a victory at Fort Hill on Friday.
Mountain Ridge fell to 9-9 (3-5 WestMAC) following its second loss of the season to Southern.
Brown led the Rams with 20 points, Van Scheetz added 16 and Harvey finished with 11.
Mountain Ridge big man Cameron Breighner garnered a game-high 22 points, AJ Lauder chipped in nine on three triples, and John Delaney ended with eight.
Southern held a 12-11 lead after the first quarter before blowing the game open with a 16-3 start to the second period that made it 28-14.
The Miners trailed by as much as 15 during the second half, but they pulled within 44-40 with the help of an 11 for 20 performance by Southern at the free-throw line in the fourth.
However, Van Scheetz buried a crucial 3-pointer in the corner, the Rams forced a turnover, and Harvey drilled a contested jumper over two Mountain Ridge defenders to help Southern’s lead swell to 49-40 with 1:52 remaining.
“Alec hit another big 3 about the same time and kept us in the lead (against Keyser last week),” Broadwater said. “He had a really big shot again tonight.”
The Miners got within seven after Lauder’s final 3-pointer, but Mountain Ridge’s first-half struggles offensively proved to be too much to overcome.
Mountain Ridge was 8 for 29 from the floor and 1 for 9 from 3-point land before hafltime.
“We battled back in the second half. We shot very poorly in the first half,” Mountain Ridge head coach Tim Nightengale said. “Our goal was one possession at a time.
“We didn’t shoot the ball well from the free-throw line tonight. You know, it was a very physical game, and I thought we could have shot a lot more free throws.”
The teams combined for 42 fouls and 51 free-throw attempts. Brown and Braden Lucas (six points) fouled out for Southern, as did Mountain Ridge’s Trent Diamond.
Southern was 22 for 34 at the foul line, and Mountain Ridge converted 8 of 17 from that range.
Foul trouble affected both teams’ lineups. Breighner was aggressive at the onset and scored Mountain Ridge’s first eight points before heading to the bench.
Mountain Ridge then took advantage of Southern’s foul trouble in the third with a 7-2 run that cut the Rams’ lead to 37-30 with 2:23 left in the third period.
Nightengale highlighted the end of the third quarter as a significant sequence, as Lucas went coast-to-coast for a layup at the buzzer for a 40-32 Southern lead going into the fourth, seconds after Breighner got the Miners within six points.
While Mountain Ridge saw its two-game winning streak come to an end, the Miners can start another at Broadfording on Thursday at 7 p.m.
“We’ve lost some close games,” Nightengale said. “We felt like we’ve been competitive in every game we’ve lost. Our goal is just to keep working and be playing our best basketball when the first playoff game rolls around.”
Southern is home again Wednesday when it’ll host No. 3 Frankfort (12-6) at 7:30 p.m.
The Rams’ mentality as the season winds to a close echoes the same sentiments as Nightengale’s.
“We’re just trying to get better every day and get to the playoffs playing our best basketball of the year,” Broadwater said.