Gallery by Heather Belcher
Just over a month back, Independence needed overtime to defeat Greater Beckley Christian in Coal City.
Tuesday inside the Crusaders home gym, the Patriots only needed regulation.
Trailing by 13 points late in the third period, Independence answered the bell and stormed back to bring home a 76-65 win over Greater Beckley.
“We got down 13 points twice and they showed a lot of heart and character to not panic. They just reached down and played a little harder,” Independence head coach Shawn Jenkins said. “I couldn’t be more proud of them than how they played tonight. It was an excellent team win. We had seven or eight kids that contributed. That makes it even better.”
Trailing by 13 points early in the second period, the Patriots rallied to within three points at the break.
Independence kept the pressure on the home squad early in the third stanza and went on top for the first time at 44-43 thanks to back-to-back 3-balls from Ethan Williams and Ashton Arthur.
Greater Beckley, however, wasted no time regaining the lead and the momentum when it ran off 14 straight points for a 57-44 advantage with 1:45 to play in the quarter.
At the heart of the run by the Crusaders was eight points from Kash Hendrix who knocked down two of his six 3-pointers on the night.
“He was shooting the ball so well. I know he made six tonight, and we will go back and look at the film, but he probably should have had the opportunity to hit 12 or 13,” Greater Beckley head coach Justin Arvon said. “We have to be willing to find our teammates and we talked about that in the locker room after the game. When you have a guy that hot, he has to touch the basketball. He just wasn’t at times. Every time he touched the ball, it seemed like he made it.”
A quick timeout by Jenkins and a line-up change gave Independence the spark it needed, just when it appeared to spiraling out of control.
“Logan Mink and Chris Lilly came in and led that last surge. They play defense hard,” Jenkins said. “They are probably the two best defenders on the team and when we are down, I have to stick them in there to create some energy. When they come in, we get scrappy and the team feeds off of that. They did an excellent job.”
While the tandem did make a vital impact on defense over the final nine minutes, they first jump-started the stagnate Patriot offense which went scoreless over four minutes to fuel the Greater Beckley resurgence.
Mink drilled a much needed 3-ball followed by a pair of free-throws before Lilly scored with 31 seconds left in the quarter.
“They threw us off on our defensive end too. We had one when (Mink) came in that we didn’t have the matchup. We weren’t talking on the substitution and he hit a three,” Arvon said. “Those things happen out of respect. If you see someone come off the bench, you better guard him like the guy that went out. We didn’t do that. Some of that is related to foul trouble, but we put guys in bad spots. We didn’t match their match-ups on the defensive end.”
A score by Sylas Nelson in the waning seconds trimmed the lead back to 57-53 and sent Indy into the fourth quarter with all of the momentum.
Complicating matters for the Crusaders was foul trouble by two of their best ball handlers.
“That really impacted us with Keegan (Davidson) and Kellen (Heffernan), our two ball-handling guards, out of the game with four fouls and with three. They played about half the game tonight,” Arvon said. “We have to have guys step up off the the bench and some of them did. At the end of the day (however), we have to have guys in the right spots for them to succeed. We didn’t do that as a coaching staff.”
A floater from Mink opened the final period and was followed by turnaround jumper in the lane from Nelson to tie the game.
With Greater Beckley reeling from Indy’s renewed energy and pressure, Lilly hit a home run ball to put the Patriots back on top.
“At the end of the day, this is on our coaching staff,” Arvon said. “That pressure shouldn’t harm us like it did today. We took ourselves out of position and that is on me.”
“Anytime you are being pressured like that and the intensity level of the other team is that high, they want to win the game more than you do,” Arvon went on to say. “You are going to get out of position. Your mind is not going to be where it needs to be. I had some timeouts that I didn’t use and I should have done that. I left guys in bad spots instead of making changes.”
A pair of free-throws from Arthur capped the 18-0 run for the Patriots before a 3-pointer from Hendrix and a score from Aaron Hall tied the game with 5:26 to play.
Down the stretch, with Heffernan having fouled out and Davidson still limited, Indy’s pressure and patience was too much, putting the game away on a 14-3 run to close the game.
“All of that aside, we go up 26-13, we go up 29-17 and then on the defensive end, we lose focus. We lose sight of our goals which is to extend leads,” Arvon said. “We give up driving lanes to the middle. We give up wide-open looks at the three and that is how teams chip away back into it. We can’t except leads, we have to extend leads.”
Arthur led the Patriots with 21 points, including 11 in the final period where he knocked down 8-of-9 free-throws to secure the win.
“He shoots them good. I had to tell him in an earlier game that he needed to go get the ball. He shoots the best free-throws on the team,” Jenkins said about Arthur. “Once I told him that, he understood it from that point forward. We have been in a few close games and he stepped up and knocked them down.”
Williams finished with 19 points, 16 coming in the first half to keep Independence in the game, while Nelson tallied 18.
Hendrix ended with 20 points with Hall and Davidson adding 12 points each.
I: 13 22 18 23 – 76
GBC: 23 15 19 8 – 65
Independence
Ethan Williams 19, Sylas nelson 18, Ashton Arthir 21, Dalton Williams 3, Chris Lilly 6, Logan Mink 9. Totals: 24 16-29 76.
Greater Beckley Christian
Keegan Davidson 12, Aaron Hall 12, Kellen Heffernan 3, Averyk Woodson 5, Kash Hendrix 20, Isaiah Kincaid 4, Hunter Laxton 3, Landon Rose 3, Eli Gunter 3. Totals: 12 12 5-9 65.
