Hico – John, Paul, George or Ringo were nowhere to be found Thursday night.
That was just fine with Midland Trail head boys basketball coach, Curtis Miller. The veteran coach had his own stars rocking the house.
Powered by 26 points from senior John Paul Morrison, including six from behind the arc, Midland Trail withstood a late Independence rally for a 65-61 win.
“He is going to be our guy most nights. He is a good basketball player and he has really worked to get where he is right now,” Miller said. “The kids look up to him and they know he is going to be our leader out on the floor.”
Coming off a tough loss Tuesday at Meadow Bridge, Miller expected much better from his team at home against Independence (0-2).
“We didn’t play very well and the intensity wasn’t there Tuesday,” Miller said. “We filmed for an hour yesterday and had about a 50-minute come-to-Jesus meeting. We only actually practiced for about 10 minutes. All we preached was effort and intensity. So, our main goal tonight was to come out, play hard and things would take care of themselves.”
Two 7-0 runs and eight points from Morrison in the opening quarter gave Trail and 21-12 lead after the first eight minutes.
However, a pair of buckets from Michael McKinney and some loose play from Trail trimmed the lead back to five points in the early part of the second quarter.
A triple from Bo Persinger sparked Trail who ran off eight straight which was capped by a corner 3 from Morrison.
The positive response after the brief lull was something Miller did not see from his team in the season opener.
“We didn’t lose our energy tonight. When we got turnover happy Tuesday or missed shots, we would pout about it instead of hustling back on defense,” Miller said. “We told them mistakes were going to happen in basketball, but they better be the first back down the floor to earn it back. I thought we did that tonight.”
Trailing by 17 points at the break, Indy could only get as close as 12 points in the third quarter. The lead ballooned to 19 at the 1:03 mark after Ayden Simms scored seven straight for Trail.
“I told them in the timeout that we were up 19 and it was kinda boring, so lets just let them climb back in and make it fun for everyone,” Miller said, jokingly.
With Independence looking down and out after the Simms run, Cyrus Goodson completely changed the complexion of the basketball game.
Over the next three minutes, Goodson attacked the rim with a vengeance and harassed Trail all over the floor, generating turnovers.
The highly athletic junior scored the next 11 points for his team to pull them back to within 10 points. The closest Indy had been since midway through the second quarter.
Watching Goodson’s exploits were both pleasing and frustrating to head coach Mike Green.
“Michael and Cyrus can get to the basket anytime they want and that requires teams to make defensive rotations and help. When they get to the rim, it is a layup, a foul or we can kick it out for a wide open 3’s,” Green said. “For whatever reason, what I am telling them is not getting through to them. I have all the confidence in the world that we are going to figure it out, but the other night we shot 65 percent from 2-point range and 20 percent from 3. I am going to assume we were pretty close to that tonight.”
Feeding off Goodson’s energy, Carter Adkins cut the lead inside double digits with back-to-back driving scores.
A layup from Goodson cut the lead to seven with four minutes to play before two free throws from Morrison and a score from Cody Harrell gave Trail a 61-50 lead.
What looked like a comfortable lead with two minutes to play, dissipated in what seemed like a heartbeat.
“We are inexperienced. We really only have two guys that played a lot of minutes last year. I thought we got rushed and made some young mistakes at the end,” Miller said. “I told them in the timeout that the only way we could lose this game was to not make foul shots or shoot our way out of the game. We started shooting our way out of the game and turnovers killed us.”
Consecutive scores from Adkins were followed by a steal from Goodson which led to a basket from Logan Phalin. Goodson then converted another steal into a layup to cut the lead to 61-58 with 57 seconds left in the game.
“I tried to keep them calm and in the end they finally settled down,” Miller said.
A foul shot from Eli Campbell made it a two possession game before a huge block from Cade Kincaid stopped a layup attempt to seal the game.
The play from his team in the final nine minutes is what Green wanted to see from his team the entire game.
“Obviously we are disappointed, but we have Westside and Greenbrier West next week and we have to get better,” Green said. “We just have to change our mentality and play downhill. That falls on me. It is up to me to get them attacking the rim and playing downhill.”
Simms scored 14 for Trail and Matthew Light added nine. McKinney led Independence with 24 and Goodson finished with 21. Adkins scored nine.
Midland Trail travels to Summers County Tuesday, while Independence hosts Westside the same night.
I: 12 6 17 26 – 61
MT: 21 14 15 15 – 65
Independence 61
Michael McKinney 24, Carter Adkins 9, Logan Phalin 4, Corey Shumate 1, Cyrus Goodson 21, J.D. Monroe 2. Totals: 24 8-14 61.
Midland Trail 65
John Paul Morrison 26, Ayden Simms 14, Eli Campbell 5, Cade Kincaid 2, Cody Harrell 6, Bo Persinger 3, Matthew Light 9. Totals: 22 13-23 65.
3-pointers – I: 4 ; MT: 8 (Morrison 6, Simms, Persinger)