It’s tough to beat a team three times during the season, especially when you play on the road for two of them.

That was the challenge for the two-time defending state champion Williston boys basketball team, which defeated Hawthorne during the regular season and in the district championship game.

But on Monday night at Bill Woods Court in Hawthorne, senior guard Decarion Debose made two free throws with 0.3 seconds left to give Hawthorne a 45-43 win in an FHSAA Rural-Region 4 Final which sent the Hornets (18-3) to next week’s final four in Lakeland.

Debose (14 points, 6 steals) said there was “really no pressure.”

“I know guys live for moments like that,” he said. “We put in a lot of work and really no pressure. I knew I was going to knock it down. I shot maybe 60-70 free throws today earlier, so I knew it was a no-brainer.”

It’s the third final four trip in the last four years and the eighth overall for Hawthorne coach Greg Bowie in his 18 seasons with the Hornets.

“It’s tough to get there,” Bowie said. “There are some friends, some colleagues of mine, that coach and they’ve coached extended careers and might have had maybe one trip to the final four, maybe two, some of them none, so it’s not just an everyday thing that you get an opportunity to get to the final four. I feel it never gets old.”

Williston led by as many as 10 points in the first half and eight in the fourth quarter but still came up short.

“We just didn’t do a very good job of rebounding the basketball down the stretch and taking care of it,” said Williston coach Jim Ervin. “We didn’t value the ball toward the end of the game there.”

With the score tied at 43-43, Williston inbounded the ball with 9.3 seconds to play on the far sideline but couldn’t hit the game-winning shot and, in fact, committed a reach-in foul after Hawthorne rebounded to send the Hornets to the line with less than a second on the clock.

“It’s just tough on any team with time running out and 74 feet from the basket and a whistle blows,” Ervin said. “It just takes away from what the game was, a game that was highly fought by both teams, highly contested and then we make a decision to control the game with a whistle.”

Hawthorne, which shot just 29.1% from the floor for the game (16-of-55), was “ice cold” in the first half.

Debose made a pair of 3-pointers in the opening quarter but after his second 3-ball from the left wing with 2:13 to play in the first quarter, Hawthorne went without a field goal for almost a nine-minute stretch.

The Red Devils went on a 12-0 run and took a 16-6 lead on a bucket by junior Azyron Johnson (8 points) with 2:37 to play in the half.

The Hornets finally ended the drought with an and-one by senior Chasion Wilson (game-high 17 points) with 1:17 to play in the half to get within seven at 16-9.

Williston went without a field goal for the rest of the half following Johnson’s basket and also went 0-for-5 from the free throw line during that stretch.

Hawthorne was able to close the half on a 5-0 run and only trailed by five, 16-11, at intermission.

“They extended the zone out further and I thought we settled for shots,” Bowie said. “In the second half, we adjusted and started attacking a little bit more because with those wings out and those two bottom guys. That opened up those driving lanes, so we took advantage of that in the second half.”

Williston went on a 10-0 run in the fourth quarter and seized the momentum.

Junior De’Andre Harvey, who scored 12 of his team-high 14 points in the second half, knocked down a 3-pointer in the right corner to give Williston a 40-32 lead with 4:10 to play, a little over 30 seconds after he had hit a fall away bank shot.

However, Debose had a big offensive putback to bring Hawthorne within six, 40-34, with 3:54 to play in the quarter and he added a steal and a layup to get back within four.

“He’s our point guard, the ball is in his hands pretty much 70% of the time,” Bowie said. “Normally he facilitates but we needed him to be more aggressive attacking the rim, the way they were playing the zone, so we gave him a high ball screen and he was able to keep gashing down the lane…he was clutch.”

Perhaps the biggest play came after senior guard Xavier Kirkpatrick (13 points) hit one of two free throws with 41 seconds left in the game to give Williston a 43-40 lead.

Wilson got fouled on an offensive putback with 22 seconds remaining and made the free throw for a three-point play to tie the game at 43-43. He scored 14 of his 17 points in the second half.

“In the first half I wasn’t scoring like I usually do, but locking in there’s other things you can do in the game of basketball,” Wilson said. “You can play defense, rebound and just get your other teammates open and so that was really the key for me in the second half, the game just came to me.”

Wilson finished with a double-double, adding 11 rebounds. He also finished 5-for-5 from the free throw line.

“I went my freshman year [at Lake Worth] so it feels good to go back [to the final four],” Wilson said. “I’m in a new town, a new city, made new friends, so living this experience with them is going to be great. We can’t wait to get there.”

After back-to-back state titles and finishing one game shy of another final four appearance, the run came to an end for the Red Devils, who finished 16-12 against a difficult schedule.

“It’s kind of tough to go in the locker room after winning back-to-back and you know you’re not going to Lakeland,” Ervin said. “We’ve made Williston a basketball program that is known statewide, outside the state actually, so we’re going to bounce back. We’ll get back in the gym and work hard.”

Hawthorne will be the No. 1 seed and will play the No. 4 seed (TBD) in the FHSAA Rural state semifinals on Wednesday, Feb. 26, at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland.

Boys Basketball

Monday, Feb. 17

FHSAA Regional Semifinals

(area teams in bold)

Class 5A-Region 12 Ponte Vedra 60, 3 Gainesville (21-7) 57

Class 4A-Region 21 Eustis 67, 4 Santa Fe (Alachua) 52

Class 3A-Region 1
3 Florida High (Tallahassee) 56, 2 Newberry 51

Region Finals

Rural Class-Region 4
1 Hawthorne 45, 2 Williston 43 

Tuesday, Feb. 18

Rural Class-Region 3
2 Fort White (14-9) at 1 Hilliard (15-5), 7 p.m.