By Mark Carpenter
Since coming out of quarantine, the Peebles Indian shave played two games. They have won both games and both by the exact final score, 57-54. Neither win has been an easy one, the first one coming over Fairfield and the latest a win on Tuesday, Feb. 2 over West Union. Going into Tuesday night in Peebles, may expected the Indians to breeze by their county rival and at points in the game, that looked like it could be the case, but the heart of the Dragons may have been underestimated.
Down by 16 points with four minutes left in the game, the Dragons rose from the ashes and went on a huge 15-0 run to put quite a scare into the home team, but some clutch free throws in the final seconds by Peebles’ Hunter White allowed the Indians to barely hang on and pull out the three-point victory.
“I thought our effort over the last 12 minutes of the game was disappointing,” said Peebles head coach Josh Arey in his postgame radio interview. “We got up big and then started doing things we should be doing offensively, bad decisions, bad shots, bad passes. That fourth quarter just became less about Peebles basketball, which we will talk a lot about the next few days. We can’t compete in our other conference games playing like that.”
The Dragons were still without their leading scorer, Cameron Campbell, out with an injury, and as the first quarter began the Indians scored on their first three possessions to go up 5-0. The visiting Dragons responded in a big way, going on an 8-0 run, fueled by three-point goals from Jai-Michael Knox and Braxton Blanton. Buckets by Know and Clayton Jones kept the Dragons in front, and a jumper at the buzzer by Peebles’ Oakley Burba cut the West Union lead to 12-10 after one quarter of action.
One of the Achilles heels in recent season for the Dragons has been their propensity to give up big runs that put them in holes hard to dig out of, and that was the case in Tuesday night’s second period. After a basket by Bobby Gallowitz in their first possessions gave the Dragons a four-point lead, the visitors went into a tailspin. While the Dragons went nearly four minutes without scoring, the Indians went on a huge 19-1 run to claim a double-digit lead. The Peebles defense led to some easy scores from Hunter White and Dawson Mills, a later stick back from Burba plus a Mills three-ball gave the home side what looked to be a comfortable 29-15 lead which landed at 31-17 at the halftime intermission.
“I thought we came out and executed the game plan in the first quarter,” said West Union head coach Austin Kingsolver. “Then in the second quarter, rather than playing to win, we played not to lose.”
The third quarter saw the Indians maintain their advantage, actually adding to it by outscoring the Dragons 12 -9. Alan McCoy came alive in the paint for the home team, scoring three times from close range , while the Dragons tried to keep within some sort of striking distance, getting a late three-pointer from Jones, but still trailed 43-25 as the final period began.
A sign of things to come appeared as the fourth quarter began as the Dragons opened on a 9-2 run, getting back to backs teals and scores from Blanton and Chris Steed. Another basket by Steed at the 5:23 mark cut the Peebles lead to 45-35, but the suddenly careless Indians regained their composure om a nice drive and score by White and a Burba three-pointer that seemingly put the game well in hand, with the home team up 52-36 with four minutes to go.
But at that point, the momentum totally shifted as the Indians began to throw the ball all over the court and the Dragons took advantage to reel off 15 points in a row to suddenly turn the contest into a nail-biter. That West Union run was mostly the work of Clayton Jones, who took over the game, scoring 11 quick points. Blanton converted a Peebles turnover into a three-point goal on the other end and a drive and score by Jones made it 52-51 Peebles with 31.4 seconds to play.
Running a set play against the West Union press, the Indians got a run out layup from Bryce Willoughby for a bit of breathing room as the Dragons just couldn’t convert opportunities, and two free throws from White made it 56-51 with 10.6 seconds left.
On the West Union end, Steed threw in a contested three-pointer to cut the Peebles lead to two and with 3.4 seconds remaining, White went back to the charity stripe where he hit one of two to give his team a three-point lead. The Dragons had one final chance to draw up something to hopefully get a good look at a game-tying three-point attempt. The plays from Coach Kingsolver was supposed to ultimately get the ball in the hands of the red-hot Jones but the Peebles defense stymied that and all the Dragons could muster was a three-quarter court heave from Brian Hunt that was off the mark and the Indians had escaped with another 57-54 win.
“They forced us into turnovers and we just didn’t take care of the basketball,” said Coach Arey. “We’ll learn from this and get better. What an effort though by the West Union kids. Hats off to them.”
“At halftime, I challenged our team to chip away at the score little by little,” said Coach Kingsolver. “We didn’t respond to that challenge until about halfway through the third quarter, but I loved our energy in the second half. Our guys hate to lose and it shows in their effort and their willingness to keep going no matter what the score is.”
“We talked before the game about how no one expects us to compete so we have to play with a chip on our shoulders. I’m proud of their effort. Those kids would run through a wall to win and I love that about them.”
the winners placed four starters in double figured, led by Oakley Burba’s 16 points. Dawson Mills and Alan McCoy each chipped in 13, with Hunter White adding 12.
West Union was paced by 21 points from Clayton Jones, with Christ Steed also hitting double figures with 10, all in the fourth quarter comeback. Braxton Blanton added 9, with Jai-Michael Knox scoring 7.
Tuesday night’s win was just the eighth game of the season for the Indians as February begins and improved their season mark to 5-3, 2-1 in the Southern Hills Athletic Conference. Peebles has 10 games left on their regular season slate and two of them are scheduled for this weekend, a Friday, Feb. 5 trip to Fairfield and a Saturday night trip to Whiteoak.
The Dragons dropped to 2-12 on the season with the Tuesday loss, and will also be in action on Friday night with an SHAC trip across county lines to battle the Eastern Brown Warriors.
West Union
12 5 9 28 —54
Peebles
10 21 12 14 —67
W. Union (54); Jones 21, Knox 7, Hunt 5, Blanton 9, Gallowitz 2, Steed 10.
Peebles (57): Mills 13, White 12, Burba 16, Willoughby 2, McCoy 13, Wesley 1.
Three-Point goals:
W. Union (5)- Knox 1, Blanton 2, Steed 1, Jones 1
Peebles (3)- Mills 1, Burba 2
