Hononegah 58, Boylan 52: For more than 28 minutes it looked as if Boylan was going to turn the NIC-10 boys basketball race into a five-team scrum.
Instead, Hononegah ratcheted up its full-court press and half-court trap and managed to escape with a 58-52 win at Boylan and maintain its one-game lead.
“We weren’t that nervous because we were in the same situation against Auburn,” Hononegah guard Matt Carroll said of the 49-38 deficit the Indians faced entering the fourth quarter. “They had been passing through us all game so we tried to get up on them and make them dribble, and they started to turn it over.”
And over, and over. Unofficially, Carroll, who scored eight points in the second half after going scoreless in the first, had two of at least five Indians steals in the final quarter, and Boylan contributed with several more careless passes.
Boylan also helped by going cold. The Titans hit 5-of-8 three-point shots, including three by Shane Zackery, in the first quarter to take a 21-8 lead and led by as many as 16 in the second quarter. Hononegah closed the gap to 37-35 in the third before Boylan made four straight three-pointers to push the lead back to 11.
In the fourth quarter, Boylan didn’t make a single field goal and only three out of seven free throws.
David Brown led Hononegah with 24 points, including scoring the go-ahead basket with 3:33 to play on a pass from Mario Donaldson and adding a crucial traditional three-point play with 57 seconds left.
Boylan had benefitted from two fairly quick technicals called on Hononegah players in the first and third quarter. This time, Brown, who was held in check in the first half, barreled into Jason Painter for a call that could go either way and this time went for Hononegah.
“They weren’t giving me anything easy so I was looking for my teammates,” Brown said. “I was able to get some better looks in the second half.”
Had Boylan held on, the Titans along with Harlem, Auburn and Jefferson all would have been within two games of Hononegah. Instead, Boylan suffered its fifth conference loss for the first time since the 1989-1990 season. Boylan coach Steve Goers declined to comment.
- Alex Gary, rrstar.com
