Hyde Park knocks off King, moves to second in Red-Central

Curie might have a stranglehold on the Red-Central, but Hyde Park and King have their eyes on second place. Hyde Park may have clinched second place with a hard-fought 62-50 home victory over King on Thursday.

The Thunderbirds (13-6, 5-2), who trailed 27-26 at halftime and led 42-41 after the third quarter, dominated the fourth period. Martin Oliver sank two three pointers and a free throw in a 14-2 run that gave the home team a 56-45 lead with 3:42 remaining in the game.

King committed three turnovers and went 1-for-5 from the floor in the final three minutes.

Marcus Smith led a balanced scoring attack for Hyde Park with 19 points. Antione Pike and Oliver scored 11 points each. Kendell Ivy scored 10 points and grabbed 10 rebounds while Cashell Dixon scored seven points and had eight assists and four steals in the victory.

Hyde Park coach Antione Samuels said his team got hot just in time.

“We didn’t start to play Hyde Park basketball until the fourth quarter,” said Samuels. “We got going offensively and we played some very good defense.”

Jesse Young and Jabari Antwane each scored 16 points for the Jaguars (14-7, 6-3).

“We played hard and we fought but we had a bad stretch where we got out of sync,” said King coach Culumber Ball. “But we will see them again Monday.”

The two teams will play Monday in a makeup game.