CARY — The Cary Academy men’s basketball team got 25 points from Jon Lohr and 23 from Cameron Walton as the Chargers completed the season sweep of rival Cary Christian on Friday, surviving a third-quarter rally to win 78-59.

Cary Christian had trailed for much of the game, even watching the deficit grow to double-digits at times. But the Knights managed to scrape their way back and tied the game at 43-all on a Bobby Duncan 3-pointer, one of Cary Christian’s seven 3-pointers on the night.

It was the first time the game had been tied since it was 12-12 in the first quarter.

Momentum didn’t stay with the Knights for long though, as the Chargers responded with a 10-0 run to finish the third quarter, getting six points from Christian Council and four from Jon Lohr.

“We feel good about the win,” Chargers coach Kenny Inge said. “But there’s always things we can get better at.”

Academy led at half 37-29, but in order to preserve that lead in the latter stages, the Chargers shot a blistering 10-of-10 from the free-throw line in the fourth quarter and 20-of-27 (74 percent) for the game.

Cary Christian (1-8), on the other hand, appeared to shoot better from 22 feet out than it did from 15. The Knights hit just six-of-12 from the charity stripe, including a three-of-six performance in the fourth quarter that included two front ends of one-and-one opportunities.

“Overall we gave them a better game,” Knights coach Danny Thomas said.

“I think we forced some shots at the end, I thought we had one guy trying to do too much, but [Cary Academy is] just a better basketball team.”

While the Knights bombed away from deep, led by Lindsey Johnson, who had 26 points and a trio of 3-pointers, the Chargers had their answer on the low block.

Despite being a guard-heavy team, as Inge described it, Lohr finished almost everything around the rim for Cary Academy.

“We tell all our bigs that most of the teams we’ve played so far, we’ve been bigger and we really pound on any shot that goes up is yours,” Inge said. “Jon has bought into it and he’s done a good job for us, floating around the basket and having those little put-backs.”

Also putting pressure on Cary Christian was the speedy sophomore Walton. The point guard finished around the rim in transition — which were often one-man fast-breaks that he initiated off a turnover — and also hit 12 of his 14 free throws, knocking down his final 10 attempts.

The biggest problem that Thomas could see was his team’s lack of poise down the stretch, as his young team turned the ball over repeatedly in the fourth quarter and was unable to come back.

“Our team plays hard, they play with a lot of heart. Unfortunately we’re young, we’ve got a lot of freshmen and sophomores and they’re just inexperienced but they give it heart,” Thomas said. “That last stretch just killed us. Turnovers will kill you every time.”

It was a turnover that sparked a thunderous breakaway dunk by Council with under a minute, putting an exclamation point on the rivalry win.

On Saturday, however, Cary Academy couldn’t finish quite as well. The Chargers blew a 14-point halftime lead to Wesleyan Christian Academy to lose 46-38 and fall to 7-3 overall.

Editor’s note: The final score may appear in other publications as 80-59. However, two points were mistakenly given to Cameron Walton after he was fouled on a missed layup attempt and it was never corrected on the scoreboard.