DALTON, Ga. - It's been an up-and-down last two weeks for the Heritage High School boys' basketball team, so it wasn't surprising that Tuesday night's win-or-go-home Region 6-AAAA tournament game against Gilmer at Southeast Whitfield followed that same script.
Losers of three of their final six league games, including by two points at Gilmer, the Generals trailed 28-20 with three minutes to play in the second period Tuesday - their goal of playing in a third consecutive state tournament fading away. However, led by junior Cole Wilcox and tighter defense, Heritage rallied for a 70-58 win.
"He's huge, a pretty special player," Heritage coach Kevin Terry said of the 6-foot-5 Wilcox, who totaled 29 points and 11 rebounds. "Around here we don't have many players with his size who can move like that, and we've got guys who, over time this year, have gotten better at getting him the ball more and more."
Gilmer opened the game on fire, hitting four 3-pointers in the first period, including two by Tyler Queen. It was another trey by Queen with 3:17 left in the second period that put the Bobcats up eight.
"They do shoot the ball really well, and early on we were worried about their two main shooters and a couple of other guys started hitting them," Terry said. "Up on the mountain (at Ellijay) it was a similar game in that we got ourselves in a hole, but that time we couldn't get out of it."
The Heritage rally began with a Blake Bryan 3-pointer. Wilcox scored the next seven points as the Generals (19-7) scored the half's final 10 points for a 30-28 lead. They then opened the second half with a 10-2 run, with Bryan scoring five and Wilcox getting another and-one layup.
The lead was seven when Kahri Spearman drove for a layup and Tylon Gaines followed with back-to-back strong drives for a 49-36 lead. Heritage was up nine starting the fourth when Wilcox took over. The future University of Georgia baseball pitcher scored eight consecutive points as the lead quickly grew to 59-42, sealing the Generals' semifinal spot and a berth in the state tournament.
"It's always nice to advance to the state, and we hope to keep it going," Wilcox said. "We just played a lot harder tonight than in the last game with them. We knew what we were capable of doing, but we haven't done it in a while. We're better when we just take the ball and go, and it was nice to see us do that tonight."
Heritage will face No. 2 seed LaFayette in Thursday's 5:30 semifinal. The Ramblers defeated Pickens 64-41 behind 17 points from Andrew Pendergrass and 14 from Alex Kelehear. The other boys' semifinal will pit top seed Northwest Whitfield against Ridgeland, which downed Southeast Whitfield 67-58 as Markeion Jones had 19 points on five 3-pointers.
The girls' semifinals, which were set after Monday's opening night, will have Gilmer facing Heritage at 4 p.m. Thursday and top-seeded Northwest going against Pickens at 7. The third-place and championship games will be played Friday.
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6296; follow on Twitter @youngsports22.