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With less than three minutes remaining in what had been a genuine see-saw battle on Tuesday night, the Eleanor Roosevelt High School boys' basketball team owned a narrow 48-47 lead over visiting Henry A. Wise High and both teams were still looking for that sudden spark to give them an edge.

Over the last 150 seconds of the contest the Pumas found such a spark as David Golladay (25 points), Phil Wood (14 points) and Dalonta Boyd (11 points, 14 rebounds) each came through with clutch baskets or free throws as the visitors pulled away to a 58-52 victory. Wise (7-1 overall, 4-0 in the County 4A League) scored seven straight points at one stretch before Roosevelt's Francis Ashe hit a meaningless jumper with 12 seconds left.

Both teams displayed patience throughout the contest, as uncontested shots were few and far between. Wise owned a tepid 24-21 halftime advantage, although the Raiders reached the double bonus with three minutes left and Wise never got to the bonus. Roosevelt clawed back to even the score at 35-35 after three quarters and the stage was set for a dramatic conclusion.

"We knew coming in here that Roosevelt was going to play good defense and focus on stopping Dalonta," said Wise coach O.J. Johnson. "I thought Phil did a great job of distributing the ball. David had a great game for us. He took a lot of good shots and did a good job getting to the line. This was a big win for us because we're in the middle of a tough stretch right now."

Wise has little chance to catch its breath, as the Pumas will face three of the County 4A League's better teams in a span of five days. Wise takes on defending 4A South Region champion Laurel on Friday, and then has dates with Bowie on Monday and DuVal on Tuesday. Bowie edged DuVal, 53-51, on Tuesday to improve to 6-1.

Roosevelt (5-2, 2-2) overcame a 28-21 deficit early in the third quarter to claim a 29-28 lead on eight straight points from Lasan Kromah (20 points, 14 rebounds). And that triggered a see-saw battle the rest of the night. Over the last 11 minutes of play there were 14 lead changes and the game was tied on five occasions. The final margin was hardly indicative of the closeness of the contest. The last 90 seconds belonged to Wise.

"When you have a one-point lead with about two minutes remaining, it's difficult to walk away with a loss," said Roosevelt coach Brendan O'Connell. "I thought we needed to do a better job defensively down the stretch. Their center [Boyd] is always going to be our focus. He's tough to defend. I thought Francis played a good game. He creates a lot of points for us. It's a long season, so we have time to work on things that need to be fixed."

Over the last three minutes of the third quarter and the first six minutes of the fourth quarter, neither team could claim more than a four-point lead. During the opening minutes of the final period, buckets from Wood, Golladay and Boyd were immediately countered by points from Prince Okoroh and Kromah. Wood completed a conventional 3-point play and Boyd added two free throws to give the Pumas a 45-41 lead, but Kromah answered with a 3-point field goal.

Ashe gave the Raiders a 46-45 lead with two free throws, but Golladay added two buckets sandwiched around an Okoroh basket. After Dominique McNeal missed the front end of a one-and-one, Wood connected on two foul shots to put Wise ahead 51-48. McNeal then hit a short jumper to make it 51-50, but the Pumas went on a 7-0 run over the next 83 seconds before Ashe scored the game's last basket.

E-mail Ted Black at tblack@gazette.net.