Watching Winston-Salem State and Hampton play at Lawrence Joel Coliseum, you wouldn’t know the teams hadn’t played each other in more than a decade.
The game between the two former CIAA schools resembled a heavyweight championship fight, literally and figuratively. It was a physical and emotionally draining game for both teams as WSSU head coach Bobby Collins faced Hampton as an opponent for the first time. Unfortunately for Collins, it was the team that he built that beat the team he’s trying to build as Hampton eeked out a 64-62 win Monday night.
WSSU’s Darrell Wonge scored a career-high 31 points in the losing effort. Wonge was the only Ram in double figures while three Pirates scored in double figures, led by Rashad West with 17 points. Adrian Woodward finished with 13 points and 11 rebounds for Hampton. Jamal Durham finished with nine points and four rebounds.
“I felt comfortable, teammates looked for me, it felt like everything was coming my way,” Wonge said after the game.
“My kids really laid it on the line,” Collins said afterwords. “I think they wanted to win it for me and I just appreciate that more than anything.”
The Rams led 37-33 at halftime and were leading before Vincent Simpson’s three-pointer gave the Pirates a 56-54 lead with 4:34 remaining in the game. Simpson missed the front end of a one-and-one free throw with three seconds left, but the Rams had no timeout’s remaining and freshman Isaiah Tucker was forced to propel a prayer from beyond mid-court which fell harmlessly about a foot from the basket.
The Rams led by five points with eleven minutes to go before the Pirates outscored them 12-5 in the next seven minutes to take the lead on Vincent’s shot. The Pirates won despite the fact that West , the team’s leading scorer went just 3 of 16 from the field. West did most of his damage from the free-throw line, going 10-13 from the line. The Pirates out rebounded the Rams 47-33, and 22-11 on the offensive glass.
The Rams also had trouble at the free-throw line. Other than Wonge, who went 7-8 from the line, the rest of the Rams shot 8 of 16, hitting just half of their free-throw attempts.
The game started almost an hour behind schedule because the women’s game ran over and the officials were late. Once officials arrived, they found two teams full of emotion and perhaps a bit restless as there was lots of pushing and shoving throughout the game. Players on both sides were called for technicals and twice officials had to huddle both teams to calm them down.
“I don’t condone that by any means, but I don’t want my kids to back down either,” said Collins.
“We knew coming in that is was gonna be emotional because they had our head coach, and we’ve got him now,” said Wonge.
WSSU will face arch-rival North Carolina A&T in Greensboro on Saturday.
Collins was disappointing in his team’s inability to finish the game, but he said he was happy with the way his team was able to compete with the cream of the crop in the MEAC.
“That’s the top team in the league, and that kind of gives us an indication of where we are going as a program.”