Indians rally in fourth quarter to slip past Scots

By ROB HAMILTON

For three quar­ters, High­land did nearly every­thing they had to do in order to top­ple Mount Gilead.

Unfor­tu­nately, games are four quar­ters long and that fourth period was a huge one for the Indi­ans in what became a 60–51 road win on Thursday.

Trail­ing 40–31 enter­ing the final eight min­utes, Mount Gilead got 14 points from Nic Pomeroy on their way to a 29-point quar­ter that car­ried them to the win.

“In the fourth, we played with a lot of energy,” said Indian head coach Tom Cooper. “We extended our press to three-quarter court and that helped out in forc­ing turnovers and speed­ing the game up a bit.”

In the other locker room, High­land coach Mike Hoyng felt his team made too many mis­takes down the stretch.

“Fun­da­men­tal errors on our part and turnovers killed us,” he said. “We thought we had an oppor­tu­nity, but our kids fell apart at the end when we needed them to stand up.”

Mount Gilead, who was play­ing with­out start­ing sopho­more Xavier Har­ris (flu), go off to a strong start in the game, but watched the Scots take over dur­ing the mid­dle quarters.

Five points from Pay­ton Van­derkooi and four each from Logan Chap­man and Chris God­frey staked the Indi­ans to a 15–12 advan­tage after the first quarter.

How­ever, High­land opened the sec­ond quar­ter with a three-pointer by Kyle Minyo and a bas­ket from Jett Swet­land to take a 17–15 lead.

The teams would bat­tle back and forth, with the Indi­ans tak­ing at 22–20 lead until the final minute of the half, when Highland’s Justin Deck­ling drained a three-pointer to give the Scots a one-point half­time advantage.

A big fac­tor in High­land hold­ing the lead was their abil­ity to hit shots from behind the arc. The team hit five three-pointers over the open­ing 16 min­utes. Deck­ling con­nected twice from long-range, while Minyo, Cur­tis Belcher and Swet­land all did once.

“We know High­land kids can shoot the three,” said Cooper. “They run off screens and have a good motion offense.”

In the third quar­ter, the Scots opened with bas­kets from Swet­land and Shawn Beltz, but a God­frey three brough Mount Gilead within a 27–25 margin.

How­ever, with the score 30–29 in favor of the Scots, the home team would fin­ish the period with a 10–2 run.

Swet­land scored four (includ­ing another three-pointer — his sec­ond of the period), while Colton Stan­ley, Deck­ling and Byron Belcher all added scores, as the Scots boosted their lead to nine.

“We talked about focus,” said Cooper. “We dug our­selves a hole and got to where we either exe­cute in the fourth or we lose. Our seniors stepped up in the fourth and played really well.”

Ethan Har­ris opened the final period by hit­ting two of his three free throws after being fouled on a three-point attempt. This was fol­lowed by a Pomeroy three-pointer and an old-fashioned three-pointer from Har­ris. In barely over 90 sec­onds of action, the Indi­ans had trimmed a nine-point deficit to one.

“We fell apart,” said Hoyng of his team’s fourth quar­ter per­for­mance. “We were up nine going in and gave up three straight three-point plays.”

Byron Belcher drained a shot to give the Scots a 42–39 lead, but the Indi­ans responded with 10 straight. Pomeroy scored seven of those points, as Mount Gilead surged ahead by a 49–42 margin.

High­land ral­lied within a three-point mar­gin thanks to a pair of Ryan Burt free throws fol­lowed by a Minyo bas­ket, but would not be able to get any closer.

Mount Gilead fired back with bas­kets by Har­ris and Van­derkooi and a free throw by Pomeroy to go up by eight with 1:27 to play. High­land would not get closer than five points down the stretch, as the Indi­ans were able to steal the road win.

Hoyng feels his team is close to break­ing through, but just needs to put it all together.

“You have to be bet­ter than a 50 per­cent free throw shoot­ing team at the var­sity level, but we were 8-of-16,” he said. “We’re so close to get­ting over the hump, but we have to fig­ure out how to get con­fi­dence in key sit­u­a­tions. It was a case of lit­tle things sep­a­rat­ing us from being a win­ning bas­ket­ball team.”

Swet­land paced the Scots with a game-high 17 points, while Minyo added 10 and Deck­ling scored eight.

For Mount Gilead, Pomeroy led the team with 14 (all scored in the fourth quar­ter), while Ethan Har­ris fin­ished with 13 and both Van­derkooi and Chap­man added 11.

“When we don’t have Xavier Har­ris, it changes us, but we played flat for a lot of the game,” said Cooper. “In the fourth, I thought we were a lot more patient and exe­cuted the offense a lot bet­ter. The MOAC is as good this year as it’s been in a long time. If you don’t bring it, you’ll lose.”

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Jan 23 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.