Duncanville gets the best of North Shore this time, advances to the 6A title game
As soon as Duncanville and North Shore’s Class 6A state semifinal basketball game was confirmed, all people could talk about the past week was North Shore’s Hail Mary game winner to beat the Panthers in the football state title game in December.
It was one of the best finishes in Texas high school football history.
Duncanville (31-7), the top-ranked team in 6A, got a little bit of revenge back for its football brothers with a 63-56 victory over No. 14 North Shore on Friday at the Alamodome.
“We heard about that all week long,” Duncanville coach David Peavy said. “We wanted to win a state championship and they just happened to be the team in our way.”
The Panthers advance to their first state final since winning it all in 2007 and will play Klein Forest in the 6A final at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday. Another win will give the program its first title in 12 years, but also come during the 20th anniversary of its 1999 state title team.
“No one is excited that we’re here. It’s about winning this thing,” Peavy said. “It’s tough, but we all know what the expectation is. Duncanville isn’t the city of champions because we got here.”
Duncanville controlled most of a low-scoring first half, but North Shore (33-4) finished strong and KJ Smith hit a 3-pointer on the left wing to beat the buzzer. The Mustangs led 26-21 at intermission.
Smith’s layup midway through the third gave the Mustangs a 10-point lead, but the Panthers used a 12-2 run to tie the game at 37 following a Jahmius Ramsey layup at the 1:43 mark.
Micah Peavy, who scored a team-high 18 points, recorded a 3-point play that gave Duncanville the lead for good, 42-41 with 7:14 to play. Peavy added another layup and Ja’Bryant Hill hit back-to-back buckets to help the Panthers remain in front.
“I saw that they were going trap Ramsey so I knew I had to step up for him and my team,” said Micah Peavy, who grabbed five rebounds and shot 8 of 12 from the floor. “We saw on film that they bring a lot of energy so we just had to match their energy and it worked out for us.”
Ramsey, who is signed to play at Texas Tech, scored 12 of his 16 points in the second half. He grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds.
“We share the ball and take what the defense gives us, and we have really good players,” David Peavy said. “They trust each other. It’s been going back and forth, Micah will lead one game or Jahmius, and we have good enough players to execute.”
Duncanville, who scored 24 points in the fourth quarter, made 19 free throws while North Shore was held to 2 of 3 from the line all night. Bruce Scott led the Mustangs with a game-high 19 points.
This story was originally published March 8, 2019 at 8:42 PM.
