Abner Livingston’s heroics boost Mount de Sales to region championship as Cavs shock Stratford 55-54

Deion Taylor is in his fourth year as the head boys basketball coach at Mount de Sales, and his knowledge of Cavaliers’ history is limited.

Thursday night, after Mount de Sales’ semifinal upset of No. 1 Tattnall, Taylor only knew that his team hadn’t played for a region tournament championship since his arrival, and he had no earthly idea when it had last happened.

The next day, he and longtime Mount de Sales scorekeeper Thom Mead figured it had been at least a dozen years since the school’s last such appearance.

Now, thanks to Abner Livingston, they’ll really have to do some digging.

Livingston forced a huge turnover with 10.5 seconds left, then took the inbounds pass, went down court and swished a 12-footer with two seconds left to cap a 15-point comeback and give No. 4 Mount de Sales the win over No. 2 Stratford 55-54 in the GIAA District 6-4A/3A championship Friday night.

The celebration was on, but had to stop because Stratford got a timeout with 1.7 seconds left.

Bobby Wooten threw a pass from the baseline to halfcourt before it was knocked out of bounds by Mount de Sales’ Terry Odom Jr.  just past midcourt. Stratford retained possession with nine-tenths of a second left. Wooten got it to Frankie Raines Jr. on the right wing, but his turnaround from just beyond the three-point line was short.

And Mount de Sales had its first region title in quite some time. The jury’s still out on the exact timespan.

“We had our opportunities,” Stratford head coach Jarvis Smith said. “They stayed in the game. We got comfortable, and those guys kept fighting.”

Livingston is one of the more dangerous perimeter shooters in the region to go with a heady game. He read the inbounds pass and deflected it off an Eagle, then almost lost possession at halfcourt before regaining it and cruising down for the shot in front of the Mount de Sales bench.

“I’m just trusting him to make a play,” Taylor said. “I’m letting it play out. He had just made a couple pull-ups earlier in the game, and I think he has one of the best pull-ups in the region, for sure.”

It wasn’t quite over, and then it was.

“Zay was to do a curl, we were hoping to get it to him,” Livingston said of Zavion DeShazier. “I was popping back to be the safety valve.

“I saw the clock and I had to make a decision, I had to go. I was really going to work it down there (to Alex Roseboro or Jackson Rowley). But Sal (Phillips) did a really good job of blocking him on the ball.

“So I did what my daddy taught me to do: pull-up jumper.”

Taylor grinned.

“I believe in my team,” he said. “I thought they were capable of so much. I just needed them to believe in themselves, and I think that’s exactly what they did tonight.”

Livingston finished with 11. Rowley led Mount de Sales with 17 points, while Roseboro and DeShazier added 13 each.

Raines topped Stratford with 17, while Justin Sewell had 12.

The Cavs watched a 6-0 lead turn into a 9-6 deficit after one, Stratford not getting a bucket from the floor until the 1:13 mark.

The hole got bigger after they got within 14-12 thanks to the Eagles’ 6-0 run giving them a 21-12 lead. Mount de Sales got some momentum with Rowley’s three-point play with 1.1 seconds left in the half, pulling it within 26-21 at the break.

The third quarter became Stratford’s after five points from DeShazier pulled Mount de Sales within 28-26. The Eagles got eight points from Raines as part of a surge that led to a 15-point lead, and 47-35 advantage heading into the fourth quarter.

The plan?

“Just locking in defensively, the same thing against Tattnall,” Taylor said of the semifinal upset of the top seed. “I think we gave ourselves shot opportunities, put ourselves in a great position.

“So really, locking in on Frankie, he’s a really great player. Locking in on him defensively was kind of the same thing we did for (Tattnall’s) Antone (Johnson), just making somebody surrounding him.”

The Cavaliers plugged away and the Eagles slowed down a little. Stratford was up 54-50 but couldn’t convert on a key offensive rebound with 1:26 left.

Another three-point play from Rowley on a huge baseline drive made it a one-point game with 1:12 left.

“We took a gamble, a baseline gamble,” Smith said. “The kid hadn’t done that all year long.”

The Eagles wasted another second chance after a hustle play by Raines, setting up the biggest win for Mount de Sales since, well, the current players were little Cavs.

It was a rare scenario for the Eagles, winners of two straight region titles.

“We were doing the same stuff, we just weren’t making plays,” Smith said. “We probably went three or four times not making a play, and they went down and made plays.

“We were up four, and I told them in a timeout that this is a danger zone. (Mount de Sales) kept answering.”