The No. 23 seed Parkway Panthers stunned No. 10 Slidell 74-70 in overtime in the first round of the non-select Division I playoffs Friday night in Slidell.
Parkway (14-15) will visit No. 7 Sulphur in the second round next week. The Tors (28-4)!ended No. 26 Benton’s season 54-28 Friday. Benton finished 14-14. Slidell closed its season 24-8.
Parkway trailed 44-35 in the third quarter. Back-to-back 3-pointers by Kaleb Williams sparked an 8-0 run that cut the deficit to 44-43. Tristan Sedberry hit a 3-pointer late in the third quarter and Parkway led 48-47 going into the fourth.
The game remained close and was tied at 57 with 3:20 left. Slidell took time off the clock and Parkway forced a turnover with 1:37 left. After a time out with 55.8 seconds left, the Panthers missed a 3-pointer with 37 seconds to play.
The Tigers then missed three contested shots underneath the basket before a foul was called on the Panthers. Slidell made both free throws with 16 seconds remaining to go up 59-57.
Parkway’s Antonio Gladney drove to the basket. It appeared his attempted layup was partially blocked. But Caleb Evans was right there for the layup with 7.6 seconds left and the game went into overtime.
Slidell went cold from the floor early in the extra period. The Panthers got open for layups and built a 73-64 lead with just 38.7 seconds left.
But it almost wasn’t enough. The Tigers started to make 3-pointers and force turnovers. They cute lead to 73-70 with 17 seconds left.
After a timeout with 15.6 seconds left, Parkway was able to get the inbounds pass to Sedberry who was fouled with 10.2 seconds left. He made the first free throw. He missed the second but it didn’t matter. Slidell missed a 3 with 4 seconds to go. A tie ball went to Slidell with.6 seconds left.
The Panthers headed to their bench as soon as the ball was inbounded,
Williams had had a big night. He finished with a game-high 26 points. Evans and Sedberry scored 17 and 16, respectively. Gladney had 11.
Parkway started the game strong and led 17-12 after Williams hit a long 3-pointer. The Panthers led 22-16 with just over five minutes left in the second quarter. But Slidell closed the half with a 10-4 run, including a pair of free throws with .6 seconds left, and led 32-26.