RALEIGH — The start of the third quarter of Saturday’s NCHSAA 4-A state championship game yielded a pair of baskets that Apex coach David Neal called two of “luckiest we’ve had all year” and gave the Cougars a five-point lead over East Mecklenburg.

Not long after that, Apex had its unluckiest stretch of basketball all year.

Fueled by a relentless defense, the Eagles closed the third quarter on a 16-2 run and went on to deal Apex a 72-63 defeat at Reynolds Coliseum.

“I’m proud as I can be of these guys to have gotten here,” Neal said. “It hurts. When you’ve got a lead in the third quarter and things seem to be going your way, and all of a sudden to turn around like they did, it really hurts.”

Apex’s downfall was swift and exact.

The Eagles (25-8) needed less than a minute to turn things around and, in retrospect, end the game.

With 3:16 to play in the third quarter and Apex (19-12) leading 39-33, senior guard Tim Plummer, who had to be pointed to as the reason for Apex’s remarkable turnaround, was whistled for his fourth foul and went to the bench. His value was promptly put on display.

“He had been the guy that really got them where they’re at,” said East Mecklenburg coach Jason Grube. “When he got in foul trouble, we really turned it up a notch. Guys picked up on that. Whenever something stalled for them, you could really tell they were looking for him. When he went out, everybody turned up the pressure on our side.”

On the Eagles’ first offensive possession with Plummer on the bench, forward Titus Robinson followed a missed shot with a two-handed slam, then stole the inbounds pass and threw down another two-handed jam. Apex turned it over again trying to break the East Meck press, and Jeremy Ingram buried a 3-pointer that gave his team a 40-39 lead — one it never relinquished. That entire sequence took 19 seconds.

“We knew they were going to pick up the pressure,” said Apex forward DeArius White. “I thought we could handle it. I think we ran out of energy. They got up big and just sustained it. Obviously, without Tim on the floor, he affects our defense, our rebounding and our scoring.”

The Eagles closed the quarter on a 16-2 run and took a 49-41 lead into the fourth quarter.

The Cougars expected the press, but despite preparing for it, there was little they could do to solve it.

With 6-foot-7 Robinson (20 points, 11 rebounds) guarding the in-bounds pass, he made it difficult just for Apex to get the ball in play. By night’s end, the Cougars had 23 turnovers, which led to 34 points the other way for the Eagles.

“We’d been working on it all week, but you can’t simulate their press,” Neal said. “We knew we had to be tough mentally to be in the spots we needed to be in. I was really frustrated with how many turnovers we seemed to have trying to get the ball in bounds after they scored.”

In the fourth quarter, East Mecklenburg spread the floor and ate the final eight minutes. Guard Malik Stith put on a ball-handling clinic, easily breaking down Apex’s attempts to trap him the half court. Stith got into the lane for short jumpers or easy dump-off passes to the post for layups, and he finished with 20 points.

“You’ve just got to tip your hat to Malik and Titus,” Neal said. “Those guys are the two best players we’ve seen all year.”

Until that game-changing run, Apex kept the game close.

Sophomore center Weston Murphy had a sensational game, scoring 15 points to go along with six rebounds and five blocks. Plummer had nine points and 10 rebounds before fouling out midway through the fourth quarter.

The Cougars had a rotten first quarter in which they had nine turnovers that led to 13 East Meck points and a 20-11 deficit — a harbinger of things to come.

But behind the smooth shooting of guard Adam Perry, the Cougars erased the deficit. Perry, voted the team MVP after scoring 17 points, hit a pair of 3-pointers and scored on a drive to the hoop to key a 10-0 run that gave Apex a 23-22 lead with 4:53 remaining in the first half.

Apex took a 30-29 lead into halftime.

“I felt like if we could win the first three, four minutes of the third quarter, that we would be able to zone them and hope we hang on until the end,” Neal said. Alas, the Cougars’ chance for their first state championship slipped away. “It’s a great experience,” White said. “I had fun with my teammates. They’re all like my brothers and I love them to death. Either way, tonight it was going to come to an end. But we came up a little short.”

Contact Tim Candon at 460-2606 or tcandon@nando.com.