By: Cooper Hart

In the first game of day 3, The Burlington School Spartans faced off against the Raleigh Christian Academy Eagles. RCA came out on fire, hitting four threes on the way to a 16-10 lead after one. The offense slowed down a bit to start the second, with RCA slowly pushing their lead out. Gabe Marquis scored on back-to-back plays, giving the Eagles their biggest lead of the half with a 12-point advantage. TBS cut into the lead a little to end the half, but RCA took a 29-20 advantage into the break. Nic Anthony was on fire, shooting 5/5 from the field and 4/4 from deep and scoring 14 points in the first half. Josh Randolph led TBS with 7.

In the second half, RCA opened up with an Isaiah Robertson three and soon stretched their lead to 13. TBS followed that with their biggest run of the game, cutting the RCA lead to 1 with just over 2 minutes left in the third before Eagles coach Dave Hartman called timeout. The Spartans took the lead on their next offensive possession thanks to a Ty Outlaw putback. The Eagles recovered and took a 40-39 lead into the fourth quarter. An intentional foul by Nic Anthony enabled Zion Walker to give the lead back to TBS with just over 5 minutes to play. The rest of the game went back-and-forth, but TBS was able to secure a 5-point lead with under 2 minutes to play. A Jordan Durham layup with 65 seconds left pushed the lead to 7 and should've been the clinching basket. RCA made a thunderous comeback, capped off by a contact layup from Gabe Marquis to give them a 1-point lead with 10 seconds left. On the final play, Zion Walker made an outstanding pass to Ty Outlaw under the rim, who put in the winning layup as time ran out. The Burlington School won the most exciting game of the tournament so far 58-57.

The Burlington School

Zion Walker: 16p, 2r, 3a, 5/8 fg
Josh Randolph: 12p, 10r
Kaden Hammond: 9p, 9r

Raleigh Christian Academy
Gabe Marquis: 20p, 3s
Nic Anthony: 17p, 4r, 2a
Jakel Powell: 9p, 4r, 4a