Jordan had to survive a barrage of 3-pointers from East Chapel Hill in the last 87 seconds of overtime to pull out a 66-64 win last Friday at home.

Up 64-58 with 1:23 to play, the Falcons left the door open to East's Wildcats by turning over two consecutive possessions and then missing the back end of two pairs of free throws in the last 28 seconds of OT.

"We really need to do a better job of taking care of the basketball," Jordan coach Kim Annas said after the Falcons committed 25 turnovers in the game. "But we did enough to win."

Jordan had been burned at the end of regulation, when East Chapel Hill freshman Arkavius Parks pulled down the rebound after the second of two missed free throws by Jordan's Phillip Williamson with 9 seconds left. East called a timeout to set up a final play, which consisted of Justen Best inbounding the ball to Parks at the top of the key, who in turn passed it to Cam Smith along the baseline for a two-handed, backdoor layup as time expired.

Jordan never trailed in overtime and took the lead for good on a 3-pointer by Darien Ortiz with 2:48 remaining. John Brown scored on consecutive layups off steals to help Jordan go up 64-55 with 1:40 to go.

Best answered with two 3-pointers barely 30 seconds apart, and Michael Newton tied the score for the last time, at 64-64, on another trey with 35 second left.

Brown and Mike Lee each hit the first of two free throws to edge Jordan back into a lead. East's last hopes died on a missed 3-point try by Best at the buzzer.

"We worked hard to give ourselves a chance to win. We just couldn't quite get that last basket," East Chapel Hill coach Ray Hartsfield said.

It was Jordan's fifth straight win, and it avenged a 52-42 loss at East Chapel Hill that was part of an eight-game losing skid in December. The Falcons' race for the playoffs will come down to the home stretch over the next 10 days.

After last Friday, Northern (11-6) and Hillside (10-5) were tied for the league lead with 5-2 conference records, though Hillside held a win in hand over the Knights. Person (13-4, 4-2) was in third place, a half-game in front of Jordan (8-9, 3-4).

With just two conference wins each, Riverside (5-10), Southern (6-10) and East Chapel Hill were languishing in the bottom half of the PAC-6.

Jordan hosts Southern this Friday. The Falcons' post-season hopes could rest on a Jan. 31 game at Hillside and then the season finale at home against third-place Person on Feb. 3.

A night to remember

DURHAM Jordan's Salita Green scored 19 points Friday against East Chapel Hill to lead the Falcons in a 55-49, hard-fought PAC-6 girls basketball game.

UNC Asheville signee Rachel McGirt added 14 for Jordan (10-8, 4-3 PAC), helping to keep the Falcons right in the thick of the race for one of the PAC-6's post-season spots. At the same time, it knocked East Chapel Hill (6-11, 1-6) into last place in the PAC-6.

Emily Myslinski paced the Wildcats' scoring with 14 points.

East Chapel Hill led 26-24 at halftime, but the Falcons took advantage of four straight Wildcat turnovers to pull ahead 49-42 early in the fourth quarter.

Green put the Falcons up by eight with a put-back with 3 minutes to play, and she gave Jordan its biggest lead at 55-45 with a one-and-one with 46 seconds left.

Jordan's Bayley Coleman-Cox, who finished with 18 points, later was presented a basketball during halftime of the Jordan boys' win over East Chapel Hill last Friday, commemorating her mark as the third Falcon to top 1,000 points.

Coleman-Cox now has 1,136 points.

A 5-10 junior, she was 151 points away from tying all-time Jordan scoring leader Kristen Lyon's 1,287 points. Lyon finished in 2010 and is now a 5-9 sophomore wing for Western Carolina.

Coleman-Cox already has Jordan's single-game scoring record, having hit eight 3-pointers and 47 points in a 66-63 win over Seneca (S.C.) during a holiday tournament in Atlanta. She finished with 90 points, the tournament's record.

"She's really been doing very well," Jordan coach Ty Cox said. "And we've got better balance than a lot of people realize."

Next: East Chapel Hill plays tonight at Northwood and returns to PAC-6 action next Tuesday at Northern Durham. The girls play at 6 p.m., followed by the boys at 7:30, both nights.

E.Warnock: 919-932-8743