By MONTE DUTTON

A trip to Spartanburg is seldom easy for the Furman Paladins, whether it’s basketball, football or club rugby.
As head men’s basketball coach Bob Richey said later, “We knew [Wofford wasn’t] going away.”
The final 1.1 seconds of the Paladins’ 78-75 victory over the Terriers were worth the price of admission … or the acquisition of a media pass.
Senior PJay Smith Jr. buried a three from the top of the key with that much remaining to lift Furman over Wofford, 78-75, in the regular-season finale for both teams on Saturday afternoon at Richardson Indoor Stadium.
A three from the top of the key. Nice rhyme. Poetry in motion.

Making such a shot is pure confidence. Smith rose to the occasion. He knew it was going in.
As Tom Van Hoy said on the radio broadcast, “Big-time play by a big-time player.”
“It’s fun,” Smith said. “You don’t get too many of these moments. I took the shot, and my teammates and coaches trusted me and I made it.
“This place got rocking. They came back. … They’re a real good ballclub. We told each other, ‘They’re going to make a punch, we just got to weather the storm,’ and we ended up doing that late. We kept responding.”
This is what Timmons Arena is going to be like next year. It’s what the House That Jerry Built is like now. It would have been etched in greatness regardless of which team won. Ecstasy beats agony every time, though.

With the victory, Furman improved to 23-8 overall and 11-7 in Southern Conference play. The Paladins secured the No. 5 seed for next week’s Ingles SoCon Men’s Basketball Championship, March 7-10 in Asheville, N.C., and will play the No. 4 seed, Samford (22-9) at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 8, in the quarterfinal round. Wofford (16-15, 10-8 SoCon) will be the sixth seed and open play on Saturday at 6 p.m. at Harrah’s Cherokee Center versus East Tennessee State (19-12).
The Paladins won both regular-season matchups against Samford, defending champion and preseason pick. Furman won, 72-70, on Jan. 29 at The Well and, 80-72, on Feb. 19, in Birmingham, Ala. Both victories were fraught with tension.

After Furman led by as many as 19 points, Wofford rallied and used a 14-2 run in the final minutes to erase a 68-60 Paladin lead as the Terriers took a 74-70 advantage with 1:13 left on Jackson Sivills’ three-pointer. Furman’s Garrett Hien answered with a triple from the left wing with 53 seconds to go, and following a stop on the defensive end, Smith drilled two free throws with 15 seconds remaining to put Furman in front, 75-74.
Wofford’s Corey Tripp drew a foul with eight seconds on the clock and missed the first free throw before converting the second to even the contest at 75-75. Smith pushed the ball across midcourt and gave a jab step before pulling the trigger from the top of the key and draining the game-winning shot with 1.1 left. Jeremy Lorenz’s last-second three, off balance and almost out of bounds, came up short as Furman secured its third victory in Spartanburg in the last four years.

Furman shot .451 from the field, including 10/25 behind the arc, and connected on 22/28 trips to the charity stripe. Smith hit 5/12 three-point attempts and all 11 trips to the foul line to net a game-high 26 points to go with three boards, three assists, and four steals. Nick Anderson added 21 points while Hien contributed eight points, five boards, and three assists.
The Paladins’ 1-3-1 defense was the story in the opening half as Wofford started the contest 2/14 from 3-point range. Furman built a 28-9 advantage before the Terriers trimmed the lead to 40-29 at halftime.
Wofford trailed by eight points with 4:30 to go before an 11-0 run, capped by Tripp’s slam and conversion at the foul line, gave the Terriers their first lead of the night.

“Man, they got this place rocking,” said Richey. “Then we had to survive the momentum of it, and it got crazy. … We could have folded, but our team didn’t.”
Tripp finished with 16 points and Kyler Filewich totaled 16 points and a game-high 11 rebounds. Sivills went 3/6 from 3-point range to add 11 points for the Terriers, who outscored the Paladins 18-5 on second-chance points and 36-18 in the paint.
Furman’s victory marked its sixth in the last eight meetings versus Wofford and was its ninth true road win of the season. Furman closed the season with four consecutive SoCon victories, a distinction matched by third-seeded East Tennessee State.
Asheville’s going to be rocking, too. Six teams have won more conference games than they’ve lost. Six have won more games overall than they’ve lost. In the SoCon, Chattanooga is 15-3, UNC Greensboro is 13-5, ETSU and Samford are 12-6, Furman 11-7 and Wofford 10-8.

Courtney Moore scored 20 points, including 14 in the second half, to power East Tennessee State to a 62-50 victory over Furman in the women’s basketball regular-season finale at Brooks Gymnasium in Johnson City.
The win gave ETSU (17-12, 8-6 SoCon) a season sweep of Furman (15-15, 5-9) and the No. 3 seed in the SoCon Tournament, beginning Thursday and also in Asheville. The Buccaneers will face No. 6 seed Furman again in a 3:30 p.m. first-round matchup.

Moore connected on 6/13 shots, including 3/7 3-pointers, and converted 5/6 free throws for her 20 points, leading a trio of Buccaneers in double figures that included Kendall Foley with 12 points and Braylyn Milton with 11.
Furman was paced by Jada Session with 15 points, and Clare Coyle finished with 10.
The Paladins suffered poor shooting in the contest, connecting on just 19/60 attempts from the field (.314) and only 2/15 from 3-point range. The Paladins didn’t help themselves at the free-throw line, putting down only 10/17 chances.
Despite outrebounding ETSU, 43-38, Furman scored only eight second-chance points following 17 offensive rebounds.
The Paladins trailed 42-39 after three periods but saw ETSU reel off eight consecutive points to start the fourth quarter on 3-pointers by Folley and by Moore, who also drained two free throws that keyed the run for a 50-39 lead two minutes into the fourth quarter.
Furman failed to make a run the rest of the way.

The Buccaneers outscored the Paladins 24-6 from 3-point range, dialing in 8/22 chances and f shooting .365 (19/52) from the field.
The game was a whistle-fest, featuring 45 fouls, with four players (two from each team) fouling out and two others completing the contest with four fouls.
Briefly …
Freshman Kate Stoltzfus delivered a two-run, walk-off single in the bottom of the eighth inning to help Furman to a 10-9 victory over UAB and a split on day two at the T-Mobile Crimson Classic at the University of Alabama’s Rhoads Stadium Saturday afternoon. The 22nd-ranked Crimson Tide downed Furman, 8-0, in the first game.

Furman claimed five additional titles Saturday to conclude the SoCon Indoor Track and Field Championship at the Corps Physical Training Facility in Lexington, Va. The Paladins dominated the distance running, as is the norm. On the men’s side, the Paladins took gold in each event from the 800 to the 5,000 meters for the third straight year, while the Furman women scored 115 points to break the former Paladin scoring high of 109 points. Both Furman teams finished third at the championship.
Samford won both the women’s and men’s meets for the sixth consecutive year. The Bulldogs scored 163.5 points on the women’s side, followed by Wofford in second with 119.5 points. The Paladin women placed third with 115 points. On the men’s side, Samford scored 177 points, followed by Western Carolina with 167 and Furman with 109.
The Furman lacrosse team had eight different players record a goal Friday evening in a 15-3 victory over Delaware State at Paladin Stadium. The Paladins improve to 3-0 on the season while Delaware State drops to 0-4.

Six of the eight Furman goal scorers had two or more in the contest led by Anna Roser’s hat trick. Paige Harman paced the Paladin offense for the second straight outing, finishing with a game high six points on four assists and two goals. Sophia Buzelis provided five points on three assists and two goals, while also winning a season high seven draws, and Lily Toole added three points on two goals and an assist.

Not only was Saturday a memorable victory by Furman over a fierce rival. It was my return to live coverage.
In the aftermath of my emergency surgery and month-long hospital stay, The Well was logistically challenging. Too much walking. Too many steps. I only put away the walker a couple weeks ago. I set my sights on the final game of the regular season at Jerry Richardson Indoor Stadium.

It wasn’t easy, but it worked out fine. I get tired, and I’m sure I looked like Tim Conway walking across the street to my truck afterward. Now I’ve got a week to get ready for Asheville and the tournament. That’s the plan. I’ve just got to keep getting stronger.
Words can ill express my appreciation for the assistance I’ve been getting from lifelong friends and acquaintances in regard to my recent health struggles. I am deeply touched at the concern of people I’ve known for most of my life.
The coming months will bring more change, and I don’t know yet what shape it will take.

From time to time, I have thought it a shame that people don’t often know what others think of them while they are alive. I’ve had a rough go of it recently, but I know that others respect, appreciate and support me.
Thanks for reading my stories, overlooking my flaws and indulging our differences.
My books, most of them fiction, are available at Amazon and on other bookseller sites. I’ve written two novels about stock-car racing, Lightning in a Bottle, and the sequel, Life Gets Complicated, both about fictional young driver Barrie Jarman.
Thanks for putting up with me.