Dragons bury Miners in final 2 minutes

David Veley popped up and out of his seat like an accordion.

Then the Lake Placid coach settled in and crouched near the scorer's table to see his suddenly resilient team pull out another district win.

"Every game is close for us now," Veley said, "and that's the kind of basketball we play."

It seems to be working.

Andre Wilson scored 13 of his game-high 24 points in the fourth quarter, and Lake Placid solidified its third-place position in the district standings with a 72-65 win over Fort Meade on Monday night.

This game little resembled the previous matchup with Fort Meade (3-5) a few weeks ago, when the Miners were thrust into the district schedule despite having only three days to practice after the state football playoffs ended. The result was a 35-point loss to upstart Lake Placid, but that was without big man Branden Fulse, who was on a football recruiting trip in Texas.

Fulse was back in the paint Monday, and he caused big problems for an undersized Green Dragons team that shifted three players toward him nearly every time he touched the ball inside - but with little success.

"He's a moose," Veley said of the 6-foot-6, 250-pound Fulse, who scored 14 points. "He pushes people around."

And he also creates opportunities for his teammates when he draws double- and triple-teams. Fort Meade knocked down 11 3-pointers, including six by Lakevin Camp, and stormed back from two double-digit deficits.

Earlier this season, that swing in momentum would have been enough to send Lake Placid spiraling into a second-half swoon. Like during the one-point loss to DeSoto. And the one-point loss to Frostproof. And the five-point loss to Mulberry.

Not this time.

Sure, the Green Dragons (8-8) still throw the ball away on occasion, or take ill-advised shots, or dribble in traffic only to have the ball stripped.

They just do it with less regularity now.

"That's kind of what we're doing now - all our games are resilient," Veley said. "Our guys are getting a little bit of attitude about us now."

So instead of crumbling, Wilson and the Green Dragons surged ahead in the fourth quarter with key defensive stands and clutch interior play - all while evening their record at .500.

"We're gonna make mistakes and do things we shouldn't do," Veley said, "but we're trying to learn."

Monday's game was indeed a lesson in patience. The Green Dragons opened the game on a 13-2 run, only to have the first-quarter lead cut to three points. They led by 11 entering the fourth quarter after Thaddeus Legree (16 points) hit a buzzer-beating 3, only to have that advantage dissipate to four in the final 2 minutes.

That's when Wilson took over.

He had a three-point play after a breakaway. He backed down two defenders and made a layup. And then he made a free throw, forward Navahri Holden stole the ball off the inbounds pass and made the basket, and Lake Placid quickly had a comfortable 68-60 lead.

Kirk Veley (13 points) tacked on two more free throws, and Wilson's layup in which he was fouled hard and landed awkwardly on his shoulder clinched the victory.

"We're starting to keep our composure down the stretch and taking care of the ball a little better," Veley said. "We're scrapping, too, a little harder. We've got to be a scrappy team; that's the kind of team we're going to be, and I think they're believing it now.

"We're not a pretty team, and it's going to be ugly at times, but we can make it ugly for other teams, too."