GARNER -- Shi'Chee Moore claimed that several of his Millbrook teammates have never been where their play took them Friday night. Certainly, the look of this Wildcat basketball team is different than the one that went to the 4A boys basketball state championship game last season.
Yet Millbrook is headed back to another 4A regional after a 62-55 road victory over Garner.
The Wildcats (24-6), who will take on Wilmington New Hanover on Thursday in Fayetteville, made things tough on the Trojans' high-scoring offense in the fourth quarter.
Moore helped keep Garner (25-3) from getting the ball inside to its big men and kept the Trojans' 3-point shooters from creating a rally.
It was a near ideal way - in the Wildcat basketball tradition - to get the result that veteran Millbrook coach Scott McInnes and his players wanted.
"We knew we'd have to come in and play good defense if we were going to beat a great team," Moore said. "We didn't shoot the ball like we wanted to at times, but we played better defense in the second half.
"It's a big step for a young team. Most of these guys have never been here before."
Moore, a senior, showed plenty of leadership in the final stages of the game. He scored 18 of his game-high 21 points in the second half and connected on eight of the 10 free throw attempts he had in the game's final quarter.
There were plenty of other big plays by Moore's fellow guards as Wildcats' Conner Shaw and Karon Blount (19 points) hit huge 3-pointers in the fourth quarter.
Moore's 3 came with 3:36 to play and put the Wildcats up 51-47. The Trojans, who fell for the third straight season in the third round of the playoffs, didn't get back within four points the rest of the night.
"Shi'Chee was just the difference down the stretch," McInnes said. "And Shaw and Karon just hit huge 3s. We weren't taking the outside shot as much as I wanted us to at times, but those were gigantic."
Garner went without a field goal for more than four and a half minutes late in the game and struggled to get the ball into its favorite positions -- the post and the wings for 3-point shots -- against the pressure created by Moore, Blount, Shaw, Andrew Ezebuiro and the rest of the Millbrook guards. The Wildcat coaching staff credited Moore with nine pass deflections on the night and the team combined for 14 steals.
"We tried to get the ball down to the baseline," Garner coach Eddie Gray said of his team's attempts to adjust to the pressure created by Millbrook's guards. "But we just didn't have the timing right. They were always there."
Garner senior center Dominique Reed finished with just seven points, while fellow big man Cameron Redd had six.
Senior guard Gavin Wilson came off of the bench to score 16 points, 13 of those in the first half, sparking a big second quarter that gave the Trojans a 28-20 lead at the break.
Millbrook started the second half on a 7-0 run and kept Garner from getting any easy scoring chances.
"It was just a battle," McInnes said. "We stayed with it through a bad second quarter and kept working on defense. Both teams made a lot of plays. We just made the last couple of great plays."
