By Andy Amey
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE
February 02, 2008 12:02 am
—
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but when Terre Haute North went into the fourth quarter of the Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference high school basketball game at Indianapolis North Central with just one turnover …
You’re right. You haven’t heard that one before, and an eventual 57-49 victory Friday night for the host Panthers wasn’t much of a damper on the Patriots’ play.
Although North Central did force but one turnover in the first three quarters, the Panthers were playing plenty of defense. They made the Patriots miss shots early, which gave the home team a lead it never relinquished, and blocked shots in the middle of the game when the visitors were threatening to make runs at the lead.
But North’s ability to run its offense against that kind of defense, plus maybe the best games of the season by Cory Hemmings and Justin Gant, kept the Patriots in the game until the end and made coach Jim Jones a reasonably happy man afterward.
“I think we got a little tired [at the end],” Jones said after the game. “But being able to compete against that caliber of competition is really encouraging ... and some kids played better than they had been playing.”
“Jim’s team did what Jim’s teams do,” coach Doug Mitchell of the Panthers said. “I know they’ve been working very hard at not turning the ball over.
“But I thought our defense stayed patient,” Mitchell continued. “I was very pleased with our effort.”
The differences in the game were mostly physical ones. North Central made a few first-half plays on the basis of pure quickness that enabled the Panthers to stay ahead, and the size advantage the home team had made the rebounding a one-sided proposition for the first three quarters.
North was still in the game early, trailing just 8-5, when the Panthers went on a 6-0 run to go up by nine. The third basket was one example of that quickness: guard Evan Gordon — you may be familiar with his older brother Eric — stole the ball from a Patriot, sped around him and outran him to the basket (while dribbling) for a layup.
North’s first big comeback attempt came early in the second quarter. A 3-pointer by Chris O’Leary followed by rebound baskets by Thomas Anderson and Gant cut a nine-point lead to 17-15, but then the Panthers got three more quick baskets. On the second of those, sophomore guard Terone Johnson shot over a Patriot, then flashed past him to rebound his own miss for a layup. On the third, reserve guard Eric Nicholas grabbed a defensive rebound on one baseline and went coast-to-coast for a layup at the other end, passing all five Patriots along the way.
But the Patriots were never deterred. They started shooting a little better in the second and third quarters — they’d have been well above 50 percent in those quarters except for six blocked shots by the Panthers — and came back from a 30-19 deficit late in the second quarter to cut the lead to five points three times in the third period.
The second of those rallies was particularly frustrating. North had cut the lead to 39-34 but twice had shots that could have cut the lead to two or three points. Neither went down.
“We missed some crucial shots,” Jones noted later.
Two more times in the fourth quarter the lead was cut to five points, at 43-38 and 47-42. The latter score came when Hemmings stole the ball, missed a layup under pressure, and Zach Harrison rebounded misses twice to finally get the basket.
But the Patriots had started making turnovers in the fourth quarter too, and those few mistakes proved costly. After the Panthers got an inside basket to go up by seven, a turnover led to the basket that put the home team ahead by nine. And when North had to press, the Panthers were able to throw over it for a dunk by 6-foot-9 Chris Toler that made the score 53-42.
Even that rally didn’t break the Patriots’ will, but the Panthers — who missed seven of their first eight free throws — hit four in a row down the stretch.
Gant, despite playing with a bout of bronchitis, led the Patriots with 13 points — 11 in the first half — while Harrison scored all 12 of his in the last two quarters. Anderson had 11 points and eight rebounds, and Hemmings had six assists.
Johnson had 15 points, Toler 13 and James Hollowell 10 for the Panthers, with Gordon handing out seven assists.
“Solid,” Mitchell said in assessing his team’s play. “I thought we played extremely solid.”
“[The Panthers’] athleticism and size [were the difference],” Jones said. “Our spirit was good, especially [in dealing with] the physical play.
“I thought we really competed,” the North coach concluded. “We never were really out of it.
Terre Haute North 49
Player fg 3pt ft r s pf tp
Gant 6-9 0-0 1-2 4 0 1 13
Harrison 5-11 2-7 0-0 3 0 1 12
Anderson 5-14 0-1 1-2 8 1 1 11
Garvin 1-7 1-4 0-0 2 0 3 3
Hemmings 2-5 0-0 0-0 2 2 3 4
O'Leary 2-3 2-3 0-0 0 0 2 6
Gauer 0-0 0-0 0-0 2 0 2 0
Totals 21-49 5-15 2-4 *23 3 13 49
Indianapolis North Central 57
Player fg 3pt ft r s pf tp
Hollowell 4-5 0-0 2-4 5 0 1 10
Ellison 2-7 0-1 0-0 1 2 1 4
Toler 6-8 0-0 1-4 8 1 2 13
Gordon 2-3 0-1 0-0 4 1 0 4
Johnson 7-12 1-2 0-0 3 0 1 15
Corley 1-5 0-4 0-0 2 1 0 2
Reid 1-1 0-0 0-0 2 0 0 2
McFall 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0 0 0
Ahlfeld 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 1 0
Nicholas 2-2 1-1 0-0 2 0 0 5
Totals 25-44 2-9 5-12 *33 5 6 57
Terre Haute North 8 14 14 13 — 49
Indianapolis North Central 16 14 11 16 — 57
FG Pct. — THN .429, INC .568. 3-pt FG Pct. — THN .333, INC .222. FT Pct. — THN .500, INC .417. (*) Includes team rebounds — THN 2, INC 5. Turnovers — THN 6, INC 8. Assists — THN 14 (Hemmings 6), INC 17 (Gordon 7). Blocks — THN 1 (Anderson), INC 7 (Toler 2, Hollowell 2).
JV — Indianapolis North Central 50 (Zack Barrett 14), Terre Haute North 30 (Logan Shipley 14).
Next — Terre Haute North (8-8, 1-3 in Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference) has a home game tonight against Evansville Reitz. Indianapolis North Central (11-5, 3-2) has a home game tonight against Pike.
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