The Raiders just didn’t solve the puzzle.

One night after stunning favored Davie County in a crucial CPC showdown, South nearly duplicated the feat against visiting Mount Tabor. “This would have been huge,” said junior guard Scott Beck. “It would have given us a pretty good shot at the playoffs.”

Instead, a frenzied 67-65 loss may have air-brushed the Raiders out of the developing postseason picture. They reached the conference season’s midpoint sporting a 1-3 record and 7-12 overall mark. Tabor, one of the teams South is battling for fourth place — and the final state playoff berth — improved to 2-3 in the league and 11-7 overall.

“For 30 minutes we did everything we needed to win the game,” said South coach John Davis. “For the other two it looked like our heads were turned the other way and we didn’t see the ball.”

The game turned midway through the third quarter after South took a 44-33 lead on senior Damien Argrett’s power-drive layup. Tabor responded with a tight defensive stand and a 16-0 run to close the period, holding the Raiders scoreless for more than five minutes.

“It all started with our defense,” said winning coach Andy Muse. “Joel Justus simply refused to lose tonight. He got us going with this attitude and everyone rallied around him.”

Justus, a college-bound senior guard, paced all scorers with 22 points. He added eight rebounds and a hatful of now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t passes, including a beautiful shovel pass to teammate Ronnie Guerrero for an open jumper and a 63-60 Tabor lead with 2:20 remaining.

South inched within a point six times in the fourth quarter, the last when Doug Daugherty hit the front end of a one-and-one with 15 seconds left. After Justus extended Tabor’s edge to two points, South had three chances to tie the score in the final 10 seconds — twice on well-defensed shots by Tore’ Girty and finally Argrett’s left-side banker that glanced off the glass at the buzzer.

“I feel like I let the team down tonight,” said Argrett, who was unnecessarily hard on himself after scoring 10 second-half points. “We did what we had to do to win the ballgame. We just came up short.”

Davis called the game “a winnable one” and added, “The guys did everything I asked them to do.”

He’ll ask them to run the table when CPC action resumes Monday with a makeup game against visiting R.J. Reynolds. “After that we’ve got three road games,” the coach pointed out. “If we get one of those four playoff berths, we will have earned it.”

NOTES: Tabor’s Marques Newman had 18 points and 10 rebounds...South has already lost twice to Tabor, also falling 83-63 on Jan. 11...Beck paced the Raiders with 17 points, including 11 in the second half. He converted three baskets from three-point range.

MOUNT TABOR(67) — Justus 22, Newman 18, Guerrero 12, Wade 6, Ackley 6, Land 3.

SOUTH ROWAN (65) — Beck 17, Girty 15, Argrett 10, Daugherty 8, King 7, Childers 4, Faggart 2, Kennedy 2, Torrence, Miller.

Mount Tabor 10 17 22 18 — 67