Joe Lawson hit one of the biggest shots of Madison’s 82-75 overtime victory against Lamar Friday night at Butler Fieldhouse.

His layup with a minute left in the fourth quarter tied the game at 69, bringing the Marlins back from a 13-point deficit in a District 20-5A game and opening the door for Madison to earn arguably its most important win of the year.

It’s little coincidence, Madison coach Craig Maura believes, that the Marlins are shaking off a tough January now that Lawson – a wing who was injured in the Houston vs. The Nation Tournament in late December and returned to the lineup Tuesday – is back.

“We’ve missed him since then,” Maura said. “He brings us things in the middle that the other kids just aren’t able to simulate. He’s strong and he can jump. The other kids developed some with him out – we have a deep bench and play about nine kids – but we just have to take it one game at a time.”

Lawson scored 11 of his game-high 26 points in the fourth quarter and overtime. Madison trailed 56-43 after the third quarter, but its pressure defense put the brakes on hot-shooting Lamar and helped the offense to a 20-6 spurt opening the quarter.

The Marlins finally pulled even at 67 on Jamaal Portis’ layup with 1:27 left, and moments later after two Lamar free throws, LSU commit Tommy Mason-Griffin assisted Lawson for the game-tying basket.

“I wanted to get a 3 to win the game,” Lawson said. “Whatever I had to do to get my team to win.”

Richard Brown’s 3-pointer two minutes into overtime gave Madison a 74-70 lead, then Portis and Chad Jackson hit back-to-back shots with about a minute left for a 78-72 advantage.

The game was slightly reminiscent of seven nights earlier in the same gym, when Madison nearly defeated Milby after trailing by 19 in the first half.

“We’ve been a fourth-quarter comeback team,” Lawson said. “We had to win this one to keep ourselves in (contention for) the playoffs. We needed to win.”

The loss put Lamar in tough straits regarding the postseason. The Redskins are behind Westbury, which they play soon in addition to district leader Bellaire.

Madison is securely in third place, two games behind Chavez and two ahead of fourth-place.

Brown scored 21 points and Mason-Griffin 17.

“Coach Gillespie does a great job with having his kids run a disciplined, patterned offense,” Maura said. “We had to try to disrupt that so we played more pressure defense and started rotating and trapping to get them out of their comfort zone. They did that for three quarters and we just couldn’t stay with them.”

Josh Bonney had 21 points for Lamar. Sam Shivers added 16 points and Greg Anthony scored 11.

GIRLS: Madison 77, Lamar 53

Tarneshia Burns scored 10 of her 17 points in the second quarter to key a game-changing run as Madison routed Lamar and stayed in contention for at least a share of the 20-5A championship.

Madison (29-3, 13-1), the only team to defeat state-ranked and co-district leader Bellaire this season, has games remaining against Sam Houston and Chavez.

A handful of Bellaire players were at the game cheering for Lamar (17-12, 8-6), but they didn’t have too much to get excited about.

The Redskins never fully recovered from the Marlins’ 8-0 run to end the first quarter. Madison was ahead 20 points by the middle of the second and led 39-14 at halftime.

“We started communicating more and we had a lot of help on defense,” Madison point guard Porsche Landry said. “We try to stay in teams’ grills so they know we’re there. We want to put some fear in their hearts.”

Megan Williams scored 14 points, Landry 12 and Raquel Jones 11 for Madison.

“We have a connection on the floor,” Landry said of Jones and Burns, her fellow starting guards. “They want the ball and I know they’re gonna do well when they get it.”

Krystal Motley had a game-high 23 points for the Redskins.