It wasn’t the trophy North Medford’s boys basketball team was hoping to receive when it entered the 34th annual Abby’s Holiday Classic, but Monday brought a result the Black Tornado had been longing for over quite some time now.

North Medford was able to gain motivation and not frustration by an early 10-2 deficit to crosstown rival South Medford, and used that to build toward an eventual 58-52 triumph over the Panthers in the third-place matchup at North Medford High.

Oregon City later won the actual Abby’s championship, topping Thurston 58-47 in the first title match that didn’t include a Medford representative since 2018.

“It always is good to end on a win, and it’s also always good to beat South,” said North Medford senior Dylan Scott. “Hopefully we can just build off of this and really turn things around, and get it going and start winning some more games.”

Scott, a shifty 5-foot-10 guard, paved the way for North Medford’s first win over South Medford since June 9, 2021 — the unconventional post-COVID season — with a game-high 17 points and four assists to halt a seven-game losing streak.

“It’s been a long time — been a long time — so we knew we had to bring something different,” said North Medford boys basketball coach Scott Plankenhorn. “I just appreciate the effort of the kids. It’s a hard team to play, they come out and they’re always super aggressive against us and know our stuff and get after us. We just did a good job to finish this thing off.”

The Panthers (4-8) came out ready for the challenge on the Tornado’s home floor, getting 3-pointers from Jake Von Strahl and Quinton Ritchie and a pair of driving layups where Cole Adee and Joey Clevenger carved through the defense to create a 10-2 advantage with less than three minutes gone by in the first quarter.

That’s when Plankenhorn called for a timeout to regroup. There wasn’t a lot of barking from the coach or inner quibbling from the players, just simple reassurance.

“We looked at the board and saw 10-2,” said the coach, “but I looked at them and said, ‘It’s early, the game decides right now about what kind of response do you give now.’ And we responded really well.”

Added Scott: “When we called that timeout, we realized that we had to lock in and stop playing so timid and stop playing so lackadaisical and really flip a switch to get things going, and we did.”

An ensuing 3-pointer by Scott lit the fire, and then that got totally stoked with a pair of hustling, extra-effort plays for baskets by senior Nate Anderson.

Suddenly the deficit didn’t seem insurmountable, and North Medford (6-5) actually found itself ahead 19-17 going into the second quarter.

The lead remained on the Black Tornado’s side after South Medford kind of lost its way offensively. Adee broke a 2 ½ minute scoreless drought with his pullup in the waning seconds of the first quarter and — after a follow-up basket by Jed Johnson to open the second quarter — the Panthers again went on a 5 ½ minute scoreless drought until Von Strahl dropped in a 3-pointer with 2:15 to go in the first half.

“I thought that we competed, for sure,” said South Medford head coach James Wightman. “It’s just the mental lapses, like I said a day ago, and you can just see it. On the offensive end and on the defensive end, it’s just blown assignments and what are we trying to do and what are you taking away from your opponent. It’s just these little things with mental lapses here and there.”

“We told the guys that we can’t just have six or seven open possessions like that,” he added, “where they’re going to score on 4-of-7 and we go 0-for-7 and now all of a sudden they’re on an 8-0 run or 10-0 run and we were just up four and now you’re down six.”

North Medford pushed its lead to as many as 12 points in the second half and led by seven entering the final quarter before South Medford mounted a comeback bid that drew the Panthers within three points with 1:16 to play after two free throws by Clevenger.

That last stretch, however, was when Scott sort of took over. He previously scored on a driving layup just ahead of the shot-clock buzzer, then took it down to the wire again for a nice drive and dish to Keenan Stewart for an inside basket with 33 seconds remaining to put North ahead 57-52.

“When the shot clock went down, we knew that we had to get into some sort of two-man offense so that we could really get the mismatch that we wanted,” said Scott. “When we did that, I knew that when Keenan had a mismatch that I’d give it to him and when I had a mismatch that I’d go with it, and we were able to get the job done with that.”

It definitely all met with approval from Plankenhorn.

“I was really excited with the way we executed at the very end there with D Scott getting to the basket,” said the coach. “We talked about spending the clock until 18 seconds and then reorganizing. All of our stuff takes around 12 seconds so we have plenty of time to run our stuff. We had D Scott on a downhill and then D Scott again on a downhill to hit Keenan, so he had a really good game.”

Afterward, Scott came up with a steal on a bit of a pileup on the other end of the floor by the Panthers and — two quick South Medford fouls later to extend the clock — ultimately sealed the victory with a free throw and only 10.3 seconds left.

Anderson chipped in with 10 points and eight rebounds and Easton Curtis had nine points, six rebounds and two assists for the Black Tornado, who also got a lift off the bench from Liam Rea with four rebounds, two blocks and two steals.

“Realistically, (Easton) doesn’t get hardly anything and he’s our leading scorer by quite a bit,” said Plankenhorn, “and we’re looking at the board and still winning. It’s amazing what we get from everybody when we are willing to share a little bit and get some big shots from everybody.”

Adee and Von Strahl each scored 14 points to lead the Panthers, while Clevenger had 13 points and 10 rebounds and Johnson added eight points, nine rebounds and two assists. Adee also managed four rebounds and five assists.

“We got down to eight or 10 and then we got it back to three, so we showed a little bit of character and we’ve just got to build on it,” said Wightman. “I told the boys that I wouldn’t be surprised if they can get a streak of winning four or five in a row, because they are right there. They are three or four plays away in every single game if it goes in our favor. I said if we can adjust the mental lapses that we have and just play smarter, then I think that you guys will like the results.”

Selected to the all-tournament team alongside North Medford’s Easton Curtis and South Medford’s Cole Adee were Oregon City’s Gylan Payne and Eli Hopkins, Thurston’s Noah Blair and Lucas LaBounty and Roseburg’s Owen Bentea.

SOUTH MEDFORD (52): Tannaci 0, Adee 14, Ritchie 3, Clevenger 13, Johnson 8, Von Strahl 14, Atchley 0, Carson 0, Pacheco 0, Mitchell 0. Totals: 18-56 10-13 52.

NORTH MEDFORD (58): Scott 17, Rea 4, Sawyer 4, Curtis 9, Snyder 5, Healy 5, Stewart 4, Anderson 10, Zimmer 0. Totals: 24-48 5-9 58.

South Medford 17 9 16 10 — 52

North Medford 19 12 18 9 — 58

3-point goals — South Medford 6-26 (Von Strahl 4, Clevenger 1, Ritchie 1), North Medford 5-17 (Scott 2, Curtis 1, Snyder 1, Healy 1). Technical fouls — Stewart.

OREGON CITY 58, THURSTON 47: Gylan Payne capped a dominant tournament run with 24 points in the Abby’s Holiday Classic championship game to propel Oregon City, which broke the game open in the fourth quarter with a closing 12-4 run.

Eli Hopkins added 14 points for the Pioneers (8-2) in the physical finale.

Nate Stiffler scored all 19 of his points in the second and third quarters for Thurston (9-1), and Lucas LaBounty finished with 10 points.

The teams combined to go 33-for-44 from the free-throw line.

OREGON CITY (58): Batchelor 0, Ali. Scott 6, Schneider 3, Sendek 5, Hoff 4, Payne 24, Emerson 2, Ala. Scott 0, Hopkins 14. Totals: 20 16-23 58.

THURSTON (47): Wilkins 3, Johnson 0, Newell 1, Piquette 4, Raven 0, Saunders 2, Blair 8, LaBounty 10, Stiffler 19, Hill 0. Totals: 14 17-21 47.

Oregon City 11 13 22 12 — 58

Thurston 13 14 16 4 — 47

3-point goals — Oregon City 2 (Schneider 1, Hoff 1), Thurston 2 (Stiffler 2). Fouled out — Blair. Technical fouls — Payne, Oregon City coach Newkirk.

WEST SALEM 85, ROSEBURG 74, 2OT: West Salem dominated the second overtime period to withstand a frantic comeback effort put forth by Roseburg, which trailed 48-38 entering the fourth quarter of the Abby’s fourth-place game.

In the two overtime periods, Tyler Hawkins and Jonah Munns each scored six points and Jacob Sanderson had seven to lift West Salem (5-5).

Owen Bentea drained seven 3-pointers and finished with 39 points for Roseburg (2-7), with 25 of those coming in the fourth quarter and overtime periods.

WEST SALEM (85): Wusstig 4, Sanderson 16, Munns 12, Hawkins 20, Sommer 2, Sladek 17, Whipple 4. Totals: 33 17-29 85.

ROSEBURG (74): Leeworthy 6, Fanugao 4, Scott 17, A. Palm 0, Frable 0, Bentea 39, Cantrell 0, Luther 8, Kemmerle 0. Totals: 26 12-16 74.

West Salem 19 13 16 12 12 13 — 85

Roseburg 16 8 14 22 12 2 — 74

3-point goals — West Salem 2 (Sanderson 2), Roseburg 10 (Bentea 7, Scott 3). Fouled out — Fanugao.

REYNOLDS 55, MILWAUKIE 43: Reynolds connected on 11 3-pointers and shrugged off a slow start to outscore Milwaukie by a 42-13 margin in the middle quarters and win the seventh-place game of the Abby’s tournament.

Jae’Lyn Smith scored all 14 of his points in the second and third quarter to spur on the Raiders (4-4).

Cameron Dean led Milwaukie (1-6) with 18 points.

REYNOLDS (55): Oliver 3, Chao 10, Bizimana 11, Smith 14, Haynes 0, Owens 6, Szabtin 3, Jenkins 5, Dayton 1, Frazier 2. Totals: 20 4-12 55.

MILWAUKIE (43): Smith 0, Brown 4, Munin 1, Ferrer 0, Dean 18, Aldridge 13, LaPlante 0, Owens 3, Yamashita 4. Totals: 13 14-18 43.

Reynolds 4 20 22 9 — 55

Milwaukie 9 14 9 11 — 43

3-point goals — Reynolds 11 (Oliver 1, Chao 2, Bizimana 3, Smith 2, Owens 2, Jenkins 1), Milwaukie 3 (Dean 2, Owens 1).