Game Report on East Forsyth-Mount Tabor Boys Basketball:EF Eagles hand MT Spartans first loss of the season, lots of Muses in this game

East Forsyth 63, Mount Tabor 55

East Forsyth - 13-10-16-24 -- 63
Mount Tabor -  8 -10-14-23 -- 55

EAST FORSYTH (8-2) Shemar Watkins 16, Tanis Samuels 13, Tyren Hairston 12, Mahaffey 7, Sparrow 6, Brintley 4, AJ Hall 3. Nichols 2.

MOUNT TABOR (10-1) Isaiah Wilkins 21, Quest Aldridge 10, Jakob Moore 8, Jayland Moore 6, Aaron Muse 3, Andrew Muse 2, Paige 2, Bullard 1.

For the second straight night in the Frank Spencer Holiday Classic, East Forsyth started fast & was relentless on defense for 32 minutes to defeat previously unbeaten Mount Tabor 63-55 and advance to the finals against top-seeded Winston-Salem Prep tomorrow night at the Lawrence Joel Coliseum.

The third-seeded Eagles, now 8-2, scored nine straight points in the first 2:20 and led by as many as 11 points (19-8) in the first half before the Mount Tabor rallied to cut the lead to five at the half (23-18) behind solid board work from Isaiah Wilkins, the game’s leading scorer with 21 points.

East Forsyth scored 14 of the first 18 points of the second half with patient half-court possessions to open up the biggest lead of the game (37-22) against the taller Spartans, who entered the game ranked third in the North Carolina 3A standings.

Mount Tabor’s scrambling full-court pressure midway through the final period whittled the Eagles’ lead from 14 (51-37) at the four-minute mark to five (53-48) with 1:40 remaining on two field goals by Wilkins. But East wrapped eight free throws down the stretch by Tyren Hairston, Josh Mahaffey & Savon Brintley around a fast-break lay-in from Shemar Watkins to seal the win & advance to their first Spencer upper bracket title game since it defeated Mount Tabor to win the 2013 tournament.

Watkins, who led East with 22 points in its Spencer opening-round victory over Mount Airy, led the Eagles again with 16 points while Tanis Samuels had 13 points and five rebounds. Hairston added 12 points and five rebounds for the winners & Connor Sparrow grabbed a team-high ten rebounds to help East to a 36-29 advantage on the boards against the taller Spartans.

NOTE: The game featured a match-up of six members of the Muse family, one of Forsyth County’s most accomplished basketball families. East Head Coach Mike Muse defeated younger brother Andy, the Mount Tabor Head Coach, for the second time in four years in Spencer play while their father Tom Muse, winner of 500+ games at Parkland HS during his long tenure there, is now a Spartan assistant. Andy’s twin sons Andrew and Aaron are junior guards for their father at MTT while older son Adam is in his first year as an assistant coach with his uncle Mike at East.

Courtesy of East assistant Coach Bill Armour