LONG BEACH, Ca. – The South team drilled 16 shots from behind the arc, and the Midwest team got a sizzling all-around effort from guard Jeremy Fears Saturday to set the stage for the championship round Sunday of the third Pangos All-American Festival 4 at McBride High.
The South and Midwest squads hook up in the title game that is set for 1 p.m.
It follows the West-East clash for third-place that is scheduled to tip at 11 a.m.
In the first of the semifinals Saturday evening, the South – trailing the West by a point at intermission – pulled away in the final 12 minutes for a 126-114 victory.
The South’s eight-player roster including three players from Texas and three from Florida – with kids from Southern California (junior Mercy Miller of Notre Dame in Sherman Oaks and Will Smith III from Bishop Montgomery) rounding things out.
And the 6-foot-3 Miller (a junior who played at Oak Hill Academy in Virginia as a sophomore and Minnehaha in Minnesota as a freshman) led the long-range marksmanship for the winners with 31 points.
Five of his 11 field goals (in 26 shots) came on 3s.
Four other players (Texans Gehrig Normand and Wesley Yates, with 23 and 22, respectively) also scored in double figures for the South.
But the player who made the most impact at the defensive ends was 6-9 Jayden Hastings (IMG Academy in Bradenton, FL), who blocked seven shots to go with his six points and seven rebounds.
The Compass Prep (Chandler, AZ) threesome of Tru Washington (26 points, on nine of 17 shooting with four 3s, to go with 10 rebounds), Mookie Cook (15 points, six rebounds and eight assists) and Pharaoh Compton (22 points, 16 of those on dunks, and 10 rebounds) led the West.
In the second contest, each of the Midwest’s seven players scored in double figures, led by 6-9 Drew Fielder (from Meridian, ID, by way of Southern California Academy), with 26 points (on 12 of 14 shooting, including a couple of 3s) for the eased up, 125-102 decision.
Another standout for the Midwest was the No. 1 junior in the national class of 2024, 6-9 Flory Bidunga (Kokomo, IN), with 21 points (10 of 12 shooting) with an event-high 12 rebounds and a couple of blocked shots.
But the guy most responsible for the start-to-finish dominance of the Midwest was Jeremy Fears (Joliet, IL, West), who scored 16 points to go with seven rebounds, seven assists and two steals and didn’t commit a turnover.
Fears (pictured), a standout during the June Pangos All-American Camp in Las Vegas and with the USA 17U that won gold in Spain in July, scoring 18 and 17 points over the final two games.
And he was also one of the more impressive of the 30 players who participated in the Kenny Smith/Puma/Pangos Lead Guard Workouts earlier on Saturday, also at McBride.
Committed to Michigan State, it’s been a summer-long presentation of why he may be the No. 1 point guard in the class of 2023.
All of the Festival games are streamed and archived by BallerTV.
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