Hoops season ends for Lee, Southern men
Feb. 15—The winter sports season came to an end for both of Lee County's traditional public school Monday night, as both Southern Lee and Lee County bowed out in the first round of the Sandhills Athletic Conference tournament.
As neither team is within the top 32 of the NCHSAA RPI ratings for the 3A East, they will not be part of the upcoming state playoffs and Monday's games should conclude the season for both teams.
Lee County was on the road at Scotland, which won the 3A half of the SAC this season and finished tied for second overall. Although the first two meetings were fairly close between the two teams, the Fighting Scots were locked in on Monday night and won 71-43 to advance to the semifinals. Meanwhile, in a game down in Raeford, Southern Lee played Hoke tough throughout, but the Bucks held on for a 68-65 victory and also punched a ticket to tonight's semifinals.
In Monday's other opening-round game, Pinecrest easily handled Union Pines 69-33. Regular-season champion Richmond had a bye in the opening round.
Tonight's slate of semifinal games features the Raiders (21-2, 12-0 SAC) hosting Hoke (11-14, 7-5) in one game, and Pinecrest (15-9, 8-4) traveling to Scotland (18-7, 8-4) in the other. The championship game will be played on Friday night between the winners.
Southern Lee ends the season at 10-15, and Lee County ends at 9-15. They split the two games they played against each other.
The Lee, Southern Lee and Union Pines women's teams were all playing opening-round tournament games on Tuesday night. These ended after press time. Both Lee County and Union Pines are currently in position to reach the 3A state playoffs, barring any tournament upsets resulting in teams picking up automatic bids this week.
