PORTLAND — With Friday’s OSAA Class 6A state semifinal tied at 48 and less than a minute remaining, South Salem High School’s boys basketball team was content to play for one final shot.
Jaden Nielsen-Skinner’s long 3-pointer with three seconds left was short, South Medford’s Hunter Bradford rebounded the ball, was fouled with 1.3 seconds left and made one free throw for a 49-48 win Friday night at the Chiles Center.
No. 2 seed South Medford (27-2) advances to the 6A state championship game to play a West Linn team that has won the past three state championships at 8:30 p.m. Saturday.
No. 6 seed South Salem (25-3) next plays Jefferson for third place at 6:45 p.m. Saturday.
“I told the team all season long the victories we were able to get showed our talent,” South Salem coach Tyler Allen said. “Tomorrow’s going to show our character.”
South Salem junior Khalid Thomas scored 15 points and had eight rebounds and Christian Russell scored 14 and had six rebounds.
Deft 3-point shooting by the Saxons’ two big men kept them ahead most of the first half.
South Medford shot a hot 42 percent from 3-point range, but South Salem managed to limit the Panthers to 12 for the game with pressure on the perimeter.
“We just did a good job on-ball defenders, keeping their man in front of them, not needing to help,” Allen said. “I think we got in trouble in moments when we gave up penetration or we switched a screen and we shouldn’t have and we were exposed and we had to help early.
“For the most part, thought, tonight, we kept our man in front of us. I was happy about that. I think that was ultimately the difference of not giving as many 3-point looks as we did.”
South Medford took a brief 31-30 lead on a coast-to-coast lay-in by Kaleb Franklin with 1:16 left in the third quarter, but Joseph Carey’s 3-pointer put South Salem back up.
South Medford’s Conor Carroll got hot early in the fourth quarter, scoring his team’s first 10 points, including a 3-pointer that gave South Medford a 41-39 lead with 4:15 left.
Carroll scored 19 points in the game on a hot 7 of 9 shooting from the field.
“Tough player,” Allen said. “We knew that in the scouting report he was going to be the guy they go, and he stayed true to form. We gave him some looks that were contested, but ultimately he made some shots that he’s accustomed to making.”
With 1:01 left Nielsen-Skinner drove the lane and hit a lay-in to tie the game at 48.
South Medford’s Carroll missed a 3-point attempt with 42 seconds left and South Salem’s Gavin Baughman came down with the rebound.
Nielsen-Skinner dribbled the ball just past the half-court line until, with five seconds left, he dribbled forward and launched a long 3-pointer with three seconds left that missed short.
South Medford’s Bradford came down with the rebound and with 1.3 seconds left South Salem’s Gabe Matthews was called with a foul.
Bradford made the first free throw in the one-and-one situation to push South Medford ahead 49-48, then missed the second.
Russell rebounded the ball, and the Saxons took a timeout with one second left. Russell’s long inbounds pass was intercepted by South Medford’s Kaleb Franklin to end the game.
bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com, (503) 399-6701 or Twitter.com/bpoehler
South Salem’s Khalid Thomas shoots the ball in South Medford’s 49-48 win in the OSAA Class 6A state semifinals on Friday, March 11, 2016.
South Salem’s Joseph Carey (5) and South Medford’s Raymond Benford (20) vie for a rebound in South Medford’s 49-48 win in the OSAA Class 6A state semifinals on Friday, March 11, 2016.