CLEVELAND — On Saturday, within minutes of each other, White County's Jadon Yeh and Silas Mulligan both helped notch three big goals with two shots.
Yeh and Mulligan each hit the 1,000-point plateau, led the Warriors to a 72-57 win over rival North Hall to sweep the season series, and kept the Warriors atop the Region 7-3A standings with just over two weeks left in the regular season.
Yeh hit the mark first with a basket early in the fourth quarter. Mulligan followed with a free throw three minutes later.
“Getting 1,000 points is special, for sure,” said Mulligan, a senior. “Very cool to do it in the same game.”
“That was pretty cool,” said Yeh, a junior, about accomplishing the feat in the same game. “We’ve been talking about it as we got closer to it. Once I got it I told Silas he needed to get his. But this was a big game for us as a team so really that’s more important. We needed to win this one.”
Yeh finished with 30 points and Mulligan 19 to lead the Warriors.
But it looked like Mulligan would get there first after he exploded for 10 consecutive points in the second quarter to help the Warriors (13-7, 9-1 Region 7-3A) rally from a first quarter deficit.
North Hall ran out to a quick 8-2 lead in the opening two minutes powered by a pair of Elijah Gaddy baskets. The Warriors rallied back to take their first lead at 14-12 on a Yeh 3-pointer that capped an 8-0 spurt.
The Trojans closed out the opening period with a 7-2 run for a 19-16 lead. That’s when the Warriors turned up the defensive pressure and Mulligan got going with his 10 consecutive points to fuel a 16-4 run for a 32-23 lead midway through the second quarter. They would not trail again.
“I knew I had to do something to kind of get us going,” Mulligan said. “The ball just kind of came to me and I was able to make some shots."
Gaddy converted a basket with 3:44 left in the half to pull the Trojans within 32-25 but White County finished half with a 7-2 run, capped by a Kenny Simpson trey, to take a 39-27 halftime lead.
White County held North Hall to just 8 points and forced five turnovers in the second quarter.
The Warriors did not let up in the third quarter. They opened the period with an 11-3 run for a 50-30 lead and North Hall never got closer than the final score, after both teams had emptied their benches. The Warriors led by as many as 27 on three separate occasions in the fourth quarter.
Kenny Simpson finished with 13 points for White County, which pushed its win streak to six.
“Our kids knew coming into this one it was a big game for us,” White County Robbie Bailey said. “But (the region) is definitely not over. We have a huge game on Tuesday at Cherokee Bluff so we can’t afford a letdown. This game won't mean anything if we don’t continue to work and get better.”
North Hall (17-4, 8-2 Region 7-3A) saw its season-high eight-game win streak snapped with the loss.
Gaddy poured in 16 points to pace the Trojans. Robert Terry had 12 points and Matthew Ray 8 for North Hall.
Both teams will be back in action in Region 7-3A on Tuesday. North Hall travels to Lumpkin County while the Warriors head to Cherokee Bluff.
