By STAFF REPORTS

PELHAM- The #9 Pelham Panthers defeated visiting #10 Homewood 46-41 Tuesday night. Both teams came into this area game at 2-0.

“This was a hard fought battle between two terrific teams,” said Panthers head coach Joel Floyd. “Extremely proud of the boys sticking to the game plan the entire game. We came out and played hard and executed our offense the way we needed to.”

JT Kepler opened the Panthers scoring with 5:05 left in the first quarter to give Pelham a 2-1 lead. A RJ McCall layup with 3:23 left in the quarter put the Panthers up 6-1. Mason Whitman hit a layup with 2:06 left in the first quarter put the Panthers ahead 8-6. Homewood led 11-10 after the first quarter.

In the second quarter, a Mitchell Rottier 3-pointer put the Panthers ahead 13-11. An Alex Reese layup put the Panthers up 17-11 with 4:55 left in the quarter. Four Zach Allison free throws the last two minutes of the game put Pelham up 23-18 at the half.

In the second half the Panthers built a 31-23 advantage. Homewood cut the lead to 33-31, but a 3-pointer from Whitman at the third quarter buzzer put the Panthers up 36-31.

In the fourth quarter, Moregan Sharp of Pelham made a layup with 6:33 left in the game to put the Panthers up 38-33. Reese made two free throws with 4:37 left in the game to put Pelham up 40-35. Homewood was able to cut the lead to two, and down two points with 10 seconds left in the game, hit a driving layup to tie the game and push it into overtime. Homewood outscored Pelham 10-5 in the fourth quarter.

In overtime, with 3:11 left Kepler made a layup from Allison to give the Panthers a 43-41 lead. With 1:05 left in the game, McCall made one free throw to put the Panthers up 44-41 and Allison made two free throws with 18 seconds to give the Panthers the 46-41 win. Pelham outscored Homewood 5-0 in the overtime period.