North Meck comes in regarded as the top public school team in the Tar Heel state. Isaiah Evans, a 6’7 senior and Duke signee, is their leader. Link Academy is part of the EYBL Scholastic league and has a plethora of Division I signees and prospects.
It was slow going for both teams at the start of the contest. It wasn’t until Evans hit a three for North Meck with 5:29 to play that either team scored. North Meck’s problems were missed shots while Link’s issues were related to turnovers. North Meck hit another pair of threes, one from sophomore Ashton Pierce and one from junior Chadlyn Traylor to give the team a 9-0 lead with 4:14 to play in the period. Once Link’s 6’6 junior Jasper Johnson hit the team’s first bucket, a three, things got rolling for Link. They ripped off ten straight points, highlighted by a transition slam from Johnson, to take a 10-9 lead with just over two minutes to go in the quarter. Traylor hit another three for North Meck, but Johnson of Link responded with a three of his own. That would end the scoring for the first quarter with Link up by a point, 13-12.
Link opened the second quarter with a 13-2 run, five of those coming from 6’8 senior Jalen Shelley. At that point, it was 26-14 in favor of Link with 5:15 to go in the period. North Meck responded with a run of their own, 10-4, to get back to within six, 30-24, with 1:34 to go. Four different players scored for North Meck during the run. However, Link ended the period with a drive from Tre Johnson and a three from Andre Iguodala to go up 35-26 at the break.
Link opened the third quarter with a 6-0 run, four of those from Tre Johnson to grab a 41-26 lead with just over six minutes to play. It looked like North Meck was done for but Evans had other plans. In short, he went off. He dropped in ten unanswered points as part of a North Meck 13-0 run to bring them back to within two, 41-39, with just under three minutes to go in the quarter. A Brandon Benjamin bucket inside for Link, to go along with a steal and score from Tre Johnson, pushed Link’s lead back to six, 45-39. A North Meck three cut that margin in half. James Brown scored inside for Link to make the score 47-42 with under a minute to go in the period. A North Meck free throw and transition basket with just four seconds to go made it a two-point game, 47-45, in favor of Link.
Back-to-back threes by Link pushed their margin to eight less than a minute into the fourth quarter. North Meck hit a three and after a Tre Johnson mid-range jumper for Link, Evans dropped in a three for North Meck to bring them to within four, 55-51, with just over five minutes left. Johnson scored four straight for Link to push their lead back to eight. North Meck hit a three to get to within 59-54 with 2:37 to play but that is as close as they would get. Link would hold North Meck off at the foul line to win by the score of 67-59.
Link was led by Tre Johnson with 26 points. Jasper Johnson added 13 points and LaBaron Philon contributed 12 points.
Evans led North Meck with 20 points while Trey Maxwell finished with 13 points and Pierce added 12 points.