The top-ranked Nokomis of Newport boys basketball team looked to be in trouble Wednesday night.
The Warriors found themselves trailing No. 4 Cony by six points at halftime, and perhaps more notable was they had been limited to 19 points.
But those who have followed the team led by impact freshman twins Cooper and Ace Flagg this winter have come to know at least two things — Nokomis has been one of the state’s best defensive teams and always capable of a late-game run.
Both traits exhibited themselves during the second half of the Warriors’ Class A North semifinal, as Nokomis limited Cony to 10 second-half points and opened the fourth quarter with 11 unanswered points to pull away to a 51-35 victory at the Augusta Civic Center.
“I just think we have kids that believe in themselves, they believe in their teammates, they believe in each other, they trust one another,” Nokomis coach Earl Anderson said. “All those things sound corny, but it’s really true and that’s what gets you through games like this when you’re faced with adversity.
“Things were not going well and Cony had things going the way they wanted, but I think it was our resilience and the fact that we believe and trust in each other that was the difference.”
Nokomis, which will take its 18-game winning streak and a 19-1 record into Friday night’s regional final against No. 2 Brewer, has allowed an average of just 32 points in its first two tournament games after yielding 40.1 points per contest during the regular season.
“Honestly, we just had each other’s backs and kept moving forward and we knew eventually we’d get it done,” said Cooper Flagg, who paced the Warriors with 22 points, 14 rebounds, four blocked shots and two slam dunks. “The ball started going our way and a couple of shots went in and that’s what really turned it around.”
Ace Flagg joined his brother in the double-double club with 10 points and 11 rebounds, while Parker Sergent scored 12 points and Luke Briggs added nine for Cony, which ended its season at 13-6.
Nokomis jumped out to a 4-0 lead on baskets by Ace and Cooper Flagg, but Cony countered with 10 straight points of its own to take a lead the Rams didn’t relinquish until late in the third quarter thanks to nagging defense and a patient halfcourt offense that served to reduce the number of possessions each team had and shorten the game.
Cony led 10-4 after the first quarter and 25-19 at halftime on a follow-up shot by Sergent at the second-quarter buzzer.
Nokomis finally forged a 27-27 tie on the second of two third-quarter 3-pointers by sophomore guard Alex Grant, and took its first lead since the first quarter on a fast-break layup by Ace Flagg, with a subsequent 3-pointer by junior forward Madden White enabling the Warriors to take a 34-32 lead into the final period.
Both teams struggled for the first two minutes of the fourth quarter before Cooper Flagg ignited Nokomis’ game-defining 11-0 run, beginning with the follow-up of his own miss with 5:36 left in the game.
That began a sequence when the highly touted first-year player for the Warriors totaled seven points, five rebounds and two assists during a 3-minute, 51-second span that ended with Nokomis holding a 45-32 lead before Cony scored its only points of the quarter on a 3-pointer by Briggs with 2:41 left.
“I don’t know how to explain it, but we are a second-half team,” Ace Flagg said. “That’s when I feel like we play our best, in the second half.”
