Mansfield Summit earns its first state tournament trip with a win over El Paso Chapin

The Mansfield Summit boys basketball team earned its first trip to the UIL State Tournament after holding off a pesky and talented team from El Paso Chapin, 54-47, on Saturday in the Class 5A Region I championship game at the Yeager Coliseum.

Summit (34-4), No. 11 in the final Texas Association of Basketball Coaches Class 5A state poll, will play at either 7 p.m. or 8:30 p.m. on Thursday in the state semifinals at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

After grueling games for both teams in the semifinals on Friday one of the questions coming in was whether or not No. 18 Chapin (30-7) could recover from a two-overtime thriller against Fort Worth O.D. Wyatt and have enough energy to compete with Summit.

Both teams showed fatigue, but in the end the Jags defensive pressure once again proved to be the difference.

“Defense travels,” said Summit coach Emund Prichett. “I mean, I don’t know if your shots are going to fall, but your effort and your defense, that stuff travels. That’s what we try to build from and that’s our core because we can depend on it every night.”

Early on it looked as if Summit would run away with the game, but Chapin found its legs in the second quarter to charge back.

A dunk by the Jaguars’ Richard Lemboye, the Region I Tournament Most Valuable Player, gave Summit a 13-5 lead with 4:26 left in the first quarter. A three pointer by Franck Emmou gave the Jags their largest lead of the first half, 28-15, at the 4:27 mark of the second quarter.

“Richard [Lemboye] being the MVP is one-hundred percent correct,” said Summit guard David Terrell of his life-long friend . “He kept us in the last game and kept us in this one.

“Being together so long we just have that chemistry. I love him. We hang around together all the time because we have that type of connection.”

But Chapin went on a 13-0 run to close the half and tie the game at 28. Bryson Goldsmith scored the final seven points of the half with Eli Rodriguez hitting two threes to start the spree.

From that point neither team led by more that four points until the Jaguars put the game away with a 10-0 run starting at the 6:45 mark of the fourth quarter.

Summit’s defense and cold shooting by Chapin saw the Huskies go seven minutes of the final quarter with out a point. A lay in by Jeffery Scott gave the Jags a 52-42 lead with 57 seconds left.

All-tournament team selections Emmou and Terrell worked Summit’s inside passing game to perfection. Their assists allowed Lemboye to score 14 points all from point-blank range.

“For me and David [Terrell] it’s been years of work,” said Lemboye, who added nine rebounds and blocked a shot. “We’ve been together since elementary school, the second grade I think, so that connection has always been there. He knows that anywhere I’m at he can find me.

“Franck [Emmou], he’s just a great player and he’ll find anybody at any time. He can go score, he can look and dish out, he can do anything. I’ve got enough trust in them that they can get me the ball if I need it.”

Emmou also finished with 14 points and added eight rebounds and three assists. Terrell, who has signed with the University of Texas at El Paso, chipped in 11 points with six rebounds and five assists.

Brandon Hymes led Chapin with a game-high 19 points and had five rebounds. Goldsmith tallied 17 points, and six rebounds for the Huskies. The Chapin duo were also all-tournament selections.

“They have a lot of heart and hustled their tails off and that’s the kind of teams that we like to play,” said Lemboye of Chapin. “Teams who will give us a challenge and fight back. Today we were just the better team. It feels amazing.”