It’s hard to top a 40-foot shot at the buzzer that wins a game. But South Cobb’s boys matched their own heroics on Monday with a 57-51 victory over McEachern in the Region 4-AAAAAA quarterfinals on McEachern's home floor.
That means that South Cobb (8-19) is in the state playoffs. McEachern (20-6) is out. McEachern beat South Cobb 69-35 and 68-29 in the regular season.
This is the same South Cobb team that beat Kennesaw Mountain 59-58 in the first round on a 40-footer at the buzzer by Malique Johnson, a 6-foot-5 senior . Johnson then scored 25 points and had 15 rebounds against McEachern.
‘’It’s been a pretty long season for us, but the kids are starting to believe,’’ South Cobb coach Gregory Moultrie said. “That shot at the buzzer gave us some life. Everybody started walking a little life.’’
South Cobb trailed 46-39 entering the fourth quarter.
This isn't the first Cinderella run for South Cobb under Moultrie, who played on two of Westover’s state championship teams in the 1990s. Two seasons ago, South Cobb upset state-ranked Harrison in the region tournament and qualified for state with a losing record but advanced a round.
But otherwise, South Cobb hasn’t been in the state playoffs since 2006. It didn’t look good this season, as Johnson was the only return starter and opened the season 1-7. South Cobb finished last out of nine teams in Region 4.
‘’At the beginning of the season, I thought we had the pieces; it was up to me to put them together,’’ Moultrie said. ‘’We had spurts during the year. Some quarters, we looked like a state-playoff team. Other quarters, we looked like we’d never played basketball before. Now, we’re playing complete games. It’s a team coming together at the right time.’’
On Tuesday, South Cobb plays second-seeded Hillgrove in the semifinals at 5:30 p.m.
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