Anthony Takes Charge as Peninsula Wins, 55-48 : Basketball: Senior forward scores only 11 points, but makes go-ahead basket in dramatic come-from-behind victory over Morningside.

High-scoring forward John Anthony, who averages 18.7 points a game, traded output for opportunity Wednesday night.

The 6-foot-7 senior scored six of his 11 points in the fourth quarter and made the go-ahead basket to lift the Panthers to a 55-48 nonleague victory over Morningside.

Playing in front of 1,850 at Peninsula, the Panthers (14-3) built an 11-point lead, only to have it dissolve into a nine-point deficit by the second half.

Peninsula then held Morningside (8-6) scoreless for more than nine minutes and limited the Monarchs to four fourth-quarter points.

“Even when we were down, we kept emphasizing defense and rebounds, and that’s what did it for us,” Peninsula Coach John Mihaljevich said. “This was a big win for us. We did some pretty good things against a pretty good basketball team.”

Leading 44-37 in the third quarter, Morningside’s plan to hold the ball for the final 1 minute 20 seconds backfired when Panther guard Brian Murphy stole the ball and was fouled making a layup.

Murphy completed the three-point play and early in the fourth quarter Anthony’s free-throw tied the score. Anthony then made a three-point basket with 3:40 remaining to give his team a 47-44 lead it would not relinquish.

Along with Anthony, Murphy finished with a team-high 11 points and guard Frank White contributed nine. Reserve center Art Shell grabbed seven rebounds.

Morningside was led by junior forward Stais Boseman, who made four acrobatic slam dunks.

Boseman scored a game-high 18 points, but struggled from the field, where he made only eight of 19 shots. The Monarchs shot 34% from the field on 19 of 56 shooting and made only five of 11 from the free-throw line.

Although frustrated because of Morningside’s shooting problems, Boseman was angry that the Monarchs could not maintain their big lead.

“Seems like we were stuck on 44 forever,” Boseman said. “We’re way better than that. They came out and played tough defense on us and we took a lot of bad shots. It was a combination of those things.”