JACKSON — In a second half of wild momentum swings, it was the Hinds AHS War Dawgs with the biggest as they rallied past Kemper County 76-64 Saturday night at the Class 2A State Tournament at the Mississippi Coliseum.

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Friday, 2:30 p.m. – Hinds AHS vs. Coahoma/West Bolivar

With the win, Hinds AHS (30-2) advances to Friday afternoon’s State 2A final against the winner of Monday’s West Boliver-Coahoma County clash at the Coliseum. Kemper County ends the season 24-11.

“We just stuck together and fought hard,” Hinds guard Keeslee Stewart said. Stewart led all scorers with 25 points, 17 of which came in the second half. “I thought this might be the end, but we didn’t want to go home.”

Hinds appeared to be in big trouble when the Wildcats opened the second half with a 9-0 run to erase a 31-28 halftime lead. The War Dawgs missed their first four shots of the half.

Then down 43-36, Cornelius Harris was called for a technical foul with 3:03 left in the third quarter. Kemper’s Tomaun Rencher made one of the two foul shots to give Kemper its biggest lead at 44-36.

Hinds finally got a shot to drop from Trevis Thomas and from that point, the light switch was on. Hinds scored the last 10 points of the third quarter to retake the lead at 46-44 on a driving basket by Stewart.

The run continued into the fourth with seven more unanswered points as Stewart hit a 3-pointer to open the quarter and followed it with a basket off the fast break. Two free throws by Erik Burks made it 53-44 just a minute deep in the fourth quarter.

A 3-pointer by LaColtan Bester with two minutes left made it a 62-54 game but Burks scored off a long pass over the Wildcat press and Nicholas Myles came up with back-to-back steals to ice the game.

“For four years, we’ve been begging Nick to come up big and he did tonight. He did a great job,” Hinds coach Keith Williams said. “We got hurt with our rebounding, but that’s happened the whole season. We just hung together and got the win.”

Kemper out-rebounded Hinds 40-34, but 25 turnovers negated that advantage. Erik Burks finished with 20 points and five rebounds, including three breakaway slams in the final 1:30. Derek Burks, his twin brother, had 12 points and seven rebounds. Myles had 11 points and four steals.

Kemper County was led by Bester’s 12 points.

Hinds led throughout all the first half but was also consistently hurt on the boards as the Wildcats enjoyed a 22-14 edge. Still, the War Dawgs managed to take a 31-25 advantage after forcing a pair of steals in the final 45 seconds of the half.

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Contract Jeff Byrd at jbyrd@vicksburgpost.com.