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Cortez-Harvey, St. Edward roar back to beat Hampshire

On Saturday night it was Pack the Place to honor Jake Goebbert at Hampshire High School, but by the end of the boys varsity basketball game St. Edward sophomore Kelvin Cortez-Harvey had grabbed the attention of the capacity crowd.

The 5-foot-8 point guard scored 14 of his game high 21 points in the final 3 minutes to lead the Green Wave to a 51-49 nonconference road win. It comes a night after St. Edward (17-3) won by 2 on the road at Ridgewood.

"It's been two really tough games this weekend," St. Edward coach PJ White said. "To come away on top in both you can't be anything but pleased. Tonight the atmosphere was great with the big crowd and it was just a heckuva game by both teams."

Following a St. Edward timeout with just over 3 minutes left in the game Cortez-Kennedy worked his way around a screen and buried a 3-pointer to tie the game at 39-39.

After a Matthew Bridges basket gave Hampshire the lead back 41-39, Cortez-Harvey answered right back with another 3 pointer to put the Green Wave back on top for good 42-41 with 2:26 left to play.

"We did a great job of moving the ball around," Cortez-Harvey said. "My teammates set some great screens and I just had to knock down the shots."

The speedy guard wasn't finished yet. On the next two Hampshire possessions he scored a transition basket off a steal by Joe French and then another off a steal of his own to extend the lead to 46-41.

"We just started playing a lot harder on defense," Cortez-Harvey said. "It was a big gym and a big night. I was just glad to be here."

Cortez-Harvey added a layup and a pair of free throws down the stretch to complete a 9-0 Green Wave run and help ice the win.

"I thought in that fourth quarter we did a great job of penetrating and kicking the ball out," White said. "We wanted to keep getting the ball to Kelvin because he had the hot hand. He can just really make things happen."

It was the second night in a row that Hampshire (13-4) faltered down the stretch. The Whip-Purs had 2 missed open layups, a pair of missed free throws on the front ends of a 1-and-1, and 3 costly turnovers in the final 3 minutes.

"Yeah, it was an accumulation of things that went wrong," Hampshire coach Bob Barnett said. "It's hard to figure because up until this weekend we had played real well in the fourth quarter. We'll have to get to the bottom of it and get it turned around."

Bridges had 15 points to lead the Whip-Purs in scoring. Drew Doran added 12.

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