By Les Dixon / Sports Editor

The South Laurel Cardinals are in unfamiliar territory with just two weeks remaining until postseason play begins.

The Cardinals dropped a 55-50 decision at home to Clay County on Friday, which marks the first time since the 2007 season South Laurel has dropped three games in a row.

To make matters worse, Cardinal big man Matt St. John went down with an ankle injury early in the second quarter before returning later in the contest, but he was never 100 percent after coming back at the start of the third quarter.

But that’s not all.

South Laurel coach Steve Wright was ejected from the game after receiving two consecutive technicals with 2:31 left in the third quarter. The Tigers were leading 40-31 at the time and managed to extend their lead to 42-31.

“They tried to say it was offensive goaltending,” Wright said. “If you can see 10 feet in the air, then you should be able to see what’s going on in the lane. You’ve got to know that a guy hit the ball above the cylinder or hit the rim, but it was just another joke call of several and that’s what set me off.”

Wright admitted his team isn’t playing up to its full potential at the present time.

“We just didn’t compete as hard as we needed to compete,” he said. “We haven’t been and it’s been going on for the past couple of weeks. We just didn’t compete very hard and we don’t defend our own guys — when a guy goes down like that, you’ve got to defend him a little bit. We didn’t do that.”

South Laurel managed to rally after Wright’s ejection and only trailed 44-39 going into the fourth quarter. Matt Watkins’ old-fashioned three-point play with 3:35 remaining in regulation tied the game at 48 apiece before Clay County pulled away.

“That’s a joke,” Wright said. “If it takes that to get you fired up, then that’s a joke — you know that. You’ve got to come ready to play — play with some passion and we’re not doing that and I’m frustrated because we’re not. I’m frustrated that we get a chance to go in the lane and shoot it and get undercut. We’ve got three officials for the game, not two, but three and we have a guy that shoots the ball, gets undercut and gets his legs taken out from underneath him and they don’t call it. That frustrates me.

“It also frustrates me that our fans come and sit in the stands and don’t even have enough in them to stand up when they introduce the starting line up,” he added. “I mean we’ve got people in the stands that don’t even get up and cheer when we’re getting introduced. I guarantee they (Clay County) had more people (fans) in the game than we did. I guarantee it — I don’t know, I don’t understand it. It’s obvious that I’m frustrated because it seems like we can’t catch a break from anybody that calls the game. We can’t get into the game or play hard enough to act like we care. I just don’t know, I just don’t know.”

South Laurel won’t have much time to rest because the Cardinals will travel to play 50th District foe Williamsburg to day at 7 p.m.

“There’s no question (we’re struggling),” Wright said. “I shouldn’t have done what I done tonight and I’m probably wrong in that regard and there’s no question, but this program means a lot to me. The team, the kids and what we have here means a lot to me and I’ve got a lot of passion for this and I just don’t understand.”

The Cardinals were led in scoring by Watkins, who finished the game with 25 points, while Gilbert followed with 11 points.

South Laurel connected on 17-of-39 shot attempts, while hitting 13-of-17 attempts from the free-throw line.

D.J. Wilson led the Tigers with 19 points, while Clay County hit 17-of-34 shot attempts. The Tigers could have put South Laurel away earlier, but managed to connect on only 17-of-30 free throw attempts.

Clay County 55, South Laurel 50

Clay County 12 18 14 11 55

South Laurel 14 12 13 11 50

Clay County (55) - Roberts 1, England 5, Wilson 19, Reed 8, Gay 6, Mitchell 16.

South Laurel (50) - Sanders 2, Watkins 25, Gilbert 11, St. John 8, Huff 2, Khan 2.