Head held high, Daiton Thomspon exited the St. John Neumann locker room one last time as a player.

His scholastic career did not end the way he had hoped, but Thomspon put all his cards on the table this season and turned quite a few aces. He will no longer play at Frank Lupacchino Court, but Thompson leaves an impressive legacy there.

Thompson scored a game-high 22 points and added seven rebounds Wednesday night against East Juniata, but the Tigers controlled the final three quarters and defeated Neumann, 54-41 in the District 4 Class AA quarterfinals. East Juniata turned the game around with a 22-7 second quarter run which gave it a 13-point halftime lead and earned a spot in Saturday’s semifinals against top-seeded Northeast Bradford.

Thompson capped a memorable senior year with another strong performance, highlighting a campaign in which he reached 1,000 career points and earned Mid-Penn Most Valuable Player honors.

“I feel like I did everything I was supposed to do. I worked hard. I worked all summer and offseason,” Thompson said. “I did more than I thought I was going to do. Getting 1,000 points, and MVP, I didn’t expect that, so I’m proud of myself.”

Thompson beat out a strong field to earn league MVP and became Neumann’s first 1,000-point scorer since four-time all-state selection Davion Hill. He helped the Knights (11-12) make a four-win improvement and did his best to carry them on a night second-leading scorer Jahki Brister could not play following last year’s transfer.

Thompson is hoping to play at Bloomsburg and showed why he could excel at the next level again, scoring 21 points through three quarters despite the constant double teaming he has grown accustomed to seeing all season. Through it all, Thompson averaged an area-best 24.1 points this season, scoring 555 and hitting 1,000 despite missing half his sophomore year with an injury.

“I do my best to play off my teammates,” Thompson said. “I’m coming off screens all game if they’re double teaming me.”

“Daiton had a lot of pressure on him, but he handled it well,” Neumann coach Lou Roskowski said. “He’s not necessarily a vocal leader, he’s an I’m going to do it and show you kind of guy. He leads by example.”

Thompson did so in the first quarter, scoring nine of the team’s 11 points as Neumann took an 11-9 lead. Following East Juniata’s fantastic second quarter, Thompson willed Neumann back into the game, scoring 10 straight third-quarter points and cutting a 14-point deficit to 36-32 with 2 minutes, 41 seconds remaining there. Thompson displayed all the tools in his box during that burst, scoring off drives, a 3-pointer and a pull-up jumper while being swarmed.

East Juniata, however, pushed the lead to 10 entering the fourth and never let Neumann get closer than eight again.

“After halftime we started playing the way we should and playing harder and getting back on defense. We weren’t doing all that in the first half,” Thompson said. “I thought we were going to win at that point (after cutting it to four). I thought we were going to win by 20.”

Neumann had the momentum, but EJ dominated the glass and produced nine of its 14 second-half offensive rebounds in that third quarter. Those second, third and fourth chance scoring opportunities blunted Neumann’s rally.

Brister averaged a double-double, including a team-best 10.5 rebounds this season, so there was a void there. Still, EJ did not have a lot of height but repeatedly outhustled and outmuscled Neumann on the boards and going after loose balls. That proved a fatal combination and EJ started salting the game away following Eric Nipple’s offensive putback which made it, 51-41 in the final two minutes.

“They outworked us the whole time,” Roskowski said. “There were a couple moments there where we put it in and got some results from playing hard, but for the most part they won almost every 50-50 ball. You can’t win like that. You have to want it.”

East Juniata certainly did and Sam Kopacki led the way with 16 points and seven rebounds. Wrett Smith scored 12 of his 15 points in the game-changing second quarter and added six rebounds, while Nipple and Jaiden May both produced five.

“It hurts but they earned it; they deserved it,” Roskowski said. “They played hard, they played well, they played together the whole game.”

Kane Meixel played a good game for Neumann, generating nine points, seven rebounds and four steals. Legend Dillard totaled seven points, seven rebounds and Zaidyn Diehl-Romano added six boards.

Thompson and Meixel hit consecutive 3-pointers late in the first half, cutting a nine-point deficit to, 21-18. Disaster struck from there, though, and East Juniata rattled off 10 points in the final 88 seconds, going up, 31-18 and seizing control.

While Neumann missed five layups and/or chippies during the 22-7 second quarter, Smith made three 3-pointers and EJ excelled in both the halfcourt and transition.

From the coaching staff’s perspective, it was a case of going backward and not forward. And while the Knights rallied in the third quarter, the constant uphill climb proved too high.

“It was like the beginning of the year. It was the same team I saw in Game 1 against North Penn-Mansfield,” Roskowski said. “We went back to having to motivate you. We shouldn’t have to motivate you. You motivate yourself.”

East Juniata remained motivated throughout the fourth quarter, fighting Neumann off every time it attempted a rally. The Tigers went up 13 but Neumann made one last push, Diehl-Romano converting a 3-point play following a rebound and putback and Meixel hitting his 3-pointer.

The Knights earned the defensive stop they needed on East Juniata’s ensuing possession, but Nipple’s putback squashed the run and denied Neumann a shot at making it a two-possession game with 1:50 remaining.

“Basketball is a game of runs and a game of mistakes,” Roskowski said. “They went on a run, and we made mistakes and we never came back from it. It is what it is and now we come back next season and try and learn from it.”

EAST JUNIATA (54)

Wrett Smith 5 2-7 15, Sam Kopacki 6 1-2 16, Jaiden May 1 3-3 5, Silas Strickhouser 3 1-3 7, Meyer Ramsey 1 0-0 2, Eric Nipple 2 0-0 5, Chase Hoffman 1 0-0 2, Easton Hackenberg 1 0-0 2. Totals 20 7-15 54.

NEUMANN (41)

Daiton Thompson 9 2-4 22, Legend Dillard 2 3-4 7, Zaidyn Diehl-Romano 1 1-1 3, Kane Meixel 3 1-2 9, Avery Taddeo 0 0-0 0, Conner Haswell 0 0-0 0, Zareik Gohl 0 0-0 0. Totals 15 7-11 41.

East Juniata 9 22 11 12–54

Neumann 11 7 14 9–41

3-pointers: EJ 7 (Smith 3, Kopacki 3, Nipple); Neumann 4 (Thompson 2, Meixel 2).

Records: East Juniata 9-14. Neumann 11-12.