Union Pines' wrapped up the regular season with a 61-49 victory, Friday, over the Eagles at Western Harnett to finish second in the regular season Cape Fear Valley conference basketball standings.

At 10-4 in the conference, (16-8 overall) the Vikes will host the seventh seed team in the opening round of the Conference Tournament, Monday night, at Union Pines. The team will not learn who their opponent will be until Viking head coach Bobby Purvis attends a meeting Saturday morning.

The Vikes opened the game well, implementing an effective full-court press and cashing in on four three-pointers in the first period (two by senior captain Derrick Ross and two by junior Will Maness) to take a 25-13 lead into the second quarter.

Ross scored six points in the second stanza and fellow Vike senior captain, Travis Monroe, poured in ten to help extend Union Pines' lead to 42-25 at the half. Ross scored fifteen of his 17 points in the first half. Monroe had twelve first-half points.

The Eagles scored eight unanswered points to open the third quarter and pull within nine points of Union Pines with 5:15 left on the clock. From there, the Vikes righted the ship and although they managed only eight third-period points, they held Western to just seven the rest of the way to take a 50-40 lead into the final frame.

With 5:30 left in the game, Eagle Markus Rayan made a pull-up jumper to cut the Vike lead down to seven. Ross would score less than two minutes later on a fast break, after a steal by J. Toomer, to give Union Pines a 55-44 advantage. D. Toomer then extended the Vike lead to 57-44 with 2:27 remaining, when he made a steal and converted on a coast-to-coast drive.

With two minutes left in the game, after a hard fought battle, Western Harnett essentially accepted defeat by clearing its bench.

Joining Ross in double figures for Union Pines was Monroe and J. Toomer both with 13. Ross and Monroe each finished the game with double-doubles as they had double-figure rebound performances.