It seems the Person Rocket boys have been playing out a recurring scenario all season, one that involves staying within nine to five points of the opponent but never being able forge ahead and pull out a win.

Tuesday night’s 63-58 Piedmont Athletic Conference loss to the Northern Durham Knights at Rocket Gymnasium provided more of the same, as the Rockets found themselves trying to chase down the Knights in the final minute only to come up short again.

Mark King’s 3-pointer and a bucket by Alex DeVaughn brought the home team to within three at 59-56 with just over a minute to go in the game. Person was then forced to foul and send the Knights to the line.

Unfortunately for the Rockets, Northern was accurate enough with its foul shots, going 12-for-17 in the fourth quarter, to come away with the victory. The Knights had just two baskets from the field in the fourth and just 19 in the game, compared to 23 field goals for the Rockets.

But it was foul shooting that turned out to be the big difference-maker on this night.

Person head coach Charles Dacus, whose last-place Rockets fell to 2-9 in the conference (9-11 overall), sensed that his team believed it could pull out the victory this time.

That is until Northern’s star guard Hunter McClintock put a damper on the comeback hopes.

“I think we really had the mindset where we felt we were going to come back and win this game,” Dacus said. “But then McClintock, who’s a heck of a player, hit some big threes in the third quarter that stretched their lead back up to eight or nine points.”

Aside from the third period, McClintock, who was averaging close to 30 points a game entering Tuesday’s contest, was relatively quiet offensively with just one 3-point field goal in the first half and four free throws in the final quarter. He came to life from the field, albeit briefly, in the third when he connected three times from beyond the arc and poured in 11 of Northern’s 13 points in the period to keep the Rockets at bay, trailing 46-37 entering the final eight minutes.

McClintock ended up with 18 points for the game.

“That kind of took the air out of us for a while,” said Dacus of McClintock’s mini eruption. “But we battled back in the fourth and got close, but just couldn’t get over the top.”

The Knights, now 5-6 in the conference, seized control early with a 19-10 first quarter lead and a 33-28 edge at the half, mostly off the strength of 12 points (six field goals) from 6-7 center Jeff Thomas.

Eight field goals and 17 first-half points by Tony Winstead (all inside the paint) helped keep the Rockets in it. The Person junior had another solid outing with a season-high 25 points and 11 rebounds but had a difficult time of it at the foul line, going 3-for-11 from the stripe.

The Rockets shot 6-for-18 as a team, and went through a costly 1-for-9 stretch in the second half that prevented them from keeping it closer and perhaps even grabbing a lead.

“We reverted back to not hitting our free throws tonight and that definitely hurt us,” Dacus acknowledged. Person had been performing better at the line in recent games.

Freshman Monroe Faulkner lifted his game in the second half, hitting for nine of his 12 points, while DeVaughn (nine points), King (six, two threes), Mike Williams (four), and Clint Holt (two) completed the scoring for the Rockets.

Outside of Winstead’s 11-of-18 shooting from the floor, the rest of the Person team hit 13 of 34 attempts (4-for-14 from the three-point area).

Northern got 17 points from Thomas, seven from Jerry Fairley, and six from Kenny Holley.

The Rockets travel to Southern Durham for a Friday night PAC-6 contest against the Spartans, who were tied for first place in the conference with East Chapel Hill entering Tuesday’s action.