North Metro takes SEBL City Title from Summer Hill, 90-87...

North Metro nips Summer Hill 90-87 to take City Championship   Cartersville, GA – North Metro battled from several deficits and built their own double-digit lead, before hanging on to win 90-87 to capture the SEBL City Conference B-League Title over the heavily favored Summer Hill squad in front a packed house on Sunday evening at JH Morgan Gym.   Despite coming into the title game with an undefeated record for the summer, the younger North Metro squad came in as the 'underdogs' against veteran Summer Hill team, who was also undefeated. Both teams came in with identical 11-0 records for the summer slate.   Summer Hill had the hot hand early on as Mike Reynolds and Chris Brown hit threes, while Michael Linley and Chris Jones both got short jumpers on the baseline. The North Metro 'recruits' found themselves down by as many as 10 in the first five minutes, but they began to slowly work back behind the perimeter shooting of Richard Davis, along with power drives by Josh White. North Metro finally took the lead after an lob pass from Darryl Williams and slam by Chris Taylor. Down two with only second remaining in the first half, Chris Morgan drove for a bucket, then turned around and stole a pass. He took a quick power-dribble and shot a clean 14-foot jumper at the buzzer to give Summer Hill a 45-43 lead at the break.   In the second half, the 'recruits' of North Metro came out strong, as Chris Taylor made several acrobatic moves to the basket and connected on two more lob slams – one coming from Williams, another from Davis – both on transition after Summer Hill turnovers. Reynolds had gone cold for Summer Hill and their offense began to stagnate, while Taylor and Davis were still getting buckets for Metro to slowly creep out to a 12-point spread. The lead continued to grow. Two Josh White freethrows with 8:40 left put Metro up 78-59. Summer Hill seemed out of it.  However, after a timeout, Summer Hill began to apply pressure which created turnovers and quick buckets by Linley and Chris Morgan, igniting a spectacular 23-2 run.  Brown's lay-in with 2:35 showing, finally put Summer Hill back up 81-80. Taylor's  freethrows put Metro back up, but Summer Hill answered again with a bucket from Morgan, making it 83-82. Metro's Davis got free for a bucket with 1:20 left and again Summer Hill fired back with a basket in the lane by Jones. Davis took a pass from Taylor and scooped it up with :35 ticks left, then after Jones missed two freethrows he scored again to give Metro an 88-85 lead. Tony Cook buried a short jumper for Summer Hill with only :11 seconds left, trimming it to 88-87. On the inbounds, Metro's Brandon Harris was fouled with :07 showing. He calmly sank both. Summer Hill called timeout. They inbounded the ball and a skip-pass found Reynolds open on the wing. His shot looked good, but rimmed in and out at the buzzer, allowing North Metro to escape with the win.   Brown led Summer Hill with 22 points, while Jones had 17, Linley 13, Morgan 12, Reynolds 11, Cook nine and Marcus Henderson three.   Davis, who was named the City Conference Tournament MV,P led all scorers with 35 points, as White had 22, Taylor 17, Williams five, Rod Williams and Harris four each and Mark Christmas three. Breion Brazier didn't score but came in to apply tough defensive coverage at several critical junctures.