Bulldogs play better, but still fall short at the CIT

At the 46th Annual Carmi-White County Invitational Tournament last week, the Harrisburg boys basketball team probably played its best basketball since the second week of the season, but still came up short losing all three games with the first one against Fairfield in overtime by two points and the last one against Carmi by one point on a buzzer-beating jump shot.

“It was just a couple heartbreaking losses,” said Harrisburg coach Andy Fehrenbacher. “Compared to where we were, the team is playing much better now, but we’re still coming up short. I felt the game against Fairfield was one of the most complete games we’ve played this year. Carmi was definitely a winnable game that I thought we should have won. We just didn’t close it out the way we needed to. We’re just not consistent. If we make free throws, we win two games. If you look at the last two weeks, outside of the Mt. Vernon game last week, we are holding teams in the 50s and 40s, so we’re doing a better job there giving us a chance to be successful.”

The Bulldogs dropped to 5-15 and will try to break their three-game losing streak this week with a road game at Hamilton County (10-7) Tuesday (weather permitting) and Saturday night at home against Union County, Kentucky (10-5).

“We’re going to keep pushing and try to be positive and get the effort and just try to get better,” Fehrenbacher said. “We’re going to try to build on the positives from last week and we’ll see how the weather holds and we’re able to play.”

Harrisburg started the CIT last Monday against Fairfield (13-8). The Bulldogs led 9-8 after the first quarter and 17-14 with 2:37 left in the second quarter before the Mules rallied to take a 18-17 lead at the half.

Harrisburg still trailed by one after the third quarter and trailed by five, 41-36, with 45.1 seconds left in regulation time. The Bulldogs game-tying rally didn’t get off to a great start when Quest Weatherington drew a foul with 32.8 seconds left and missed both free throws, but after pulling down the rebound Weatherington forced Fairfield to throw the ball out-of-bounds with 29.1 seconds remaining to keep the door open for a comeback.

The Mules then threw the door completely open by fouling Weatherington when he caught the inbounds pass with 28.2 remaining. He made his first free throw, but missed his second leaving the Bulldogs down by four, but Davis pulled down the rebound and had his shot blocked out-of-bounds keeping ball in Harrisburg’s possession with 22.9 seconds left on the clock.

With 14.1 seconds left, Weatherington scored on a layup while being fouled and completed the three-point play at the line to cut the lead to one.

Weatherington immediately fouled to keep the Mules from running out the clock and they made both free throws to give them a three-point lead with 11.4 remaining.

After a timeout to set up strategy, Grayson Stafford took the ball out-of-bounds and threw in to Weatherington on the left side when another timeout was called with 8.9 seconds left.

Once play resumed, Stafford again threw in to Weatherington, who passed to Aidan Hankins on the right sideline with 6.4 seconds remaining. The junior 5-10 guard/forward pulled up just behind the arc and launched the final shot that hit the mark with 4.4 seconds left to tie the score, 43-43, and to send the game into overtime.

The Bulldogs began the overtime period without Vallette, who had fouled out with 1:41 remaining in the fourth quarter and then lost Weatherington seconds into the overtime when he also fouled out.

“We had to play the overtime without Weatherington and Vallette, therefore I had players on the floor that weren’t even on the varsity last year,” Fehrenbacher said.

Fairfield started the four minute overtime period drawing two fouls and making 3-of-4 from the line to take a three-point lead 44 seconds in when Weatherington fouled out.

Hankins cut the lead to one by putting back a missed shot by Stafford with 3:01 remaining. After Fairfield scored to regain the three-point lead, Stafford swished a 3-point shot from the left of the top of the key to tie the score with 1:37 left.

With 59.1 remaining, Davis was fouled, but he missed both free throws. The Bulldogs got the ball back on a jump ball, but Kam Ward had the ball stripped from him as he drove the lane giving it back to Fairfield.

The Mules passed the ball around and with 10 seconds left attacked the basket and scored on a Breychan Kovacich layup with 4.4 remaining. Harrisburg called a timeout with 2.4 left, but Laban Phelps’ long pass was intercepted ending the game.

Stafford led the Bulldogs with 11 points followed by Weatherington and Davis with 10 points each and Hankins with nine. Rounding out the scoring was Gage Thomas and Aydan Harrison with three points each and Nash Vallette with two.

Wednesday, Harrisburg played Mt. Vernon (9-5) from Indiana and immediately fell behind 4-0 before trailing 19-9 after the first quarter. The Wildcats expanded their lead to 44-18 at the half and 57-25 after the third quarter to trigger the running clock rule for the fourth quarter. The Bulldogs cut three points off the lead before losing, 65-36.

Vallette led the Bulldogs with nine points followed by Weatherington with six, Ward five, Harrison four, Davis and Hankins with three each and two points each by Thomas, Phelps and Max Davidson.

Friday night, the Bulldogs took it the Bulldogs from Carmi-White County (2-15) from the beginning jumping out to a 7-0 lead and stretching it out to nine, 16-7, heading into the second quarter.

The other Bulldogs tied the score, 16-16, to open the second quarter and after Harrisburg scored the next five points on a Harrison put-back and a Stafford 3-pointer, Carmi closed out the quarter on a 16-2 run to take a 32-23 lead at the half.

Harrisburg battled after the intermission methodically cutting into the lead until Stafford hit a jumper from the right side of the lane to retake the lead, 37-36, with 12.3 seconds left. Stafford got the ball back and swished a 3-pointer with less than a second remaining to give Harrisburg a 40-36 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

Stafford opened the fourth quarter with another 3-pointer to expand the lead to seven. The Bulldogs still held a five-point lead with 3:50 left when the other Bulldogs made their run cutting the lead to one on two free throws with 1:35 remaining.

Following a timeout, Weatherington took a 3-point shot from the left side with 1:06 left, but it rimmed out and Carmi got the rebound. Carmi then missed a short shot from under the net and Weatherington pulled down the rebound with 45 seconds remaining.

With three fouls to give, Carmi fouled Vallette with 38.8 seconds left and Harrisburg took another timeout. When play resumed, Davis was passed the ball under the basket just outside the lane to the right, but his shot was blocked with 26.2 seconds still on the clock.

Vallette got the rebound and after a blocked pass was saved on the right side, but a pass to the left side sailed out-of-bounds with 17.4 seconds remaining.

“We had the ball with a one-point lead and threw it away,” Fehrenbacher said.

When play resumed, Carson Miller was fouled and missed both free throws with 14.7 seconds left. After Carmi got the rebound, the other Bulldogs called a timeout with 11.6 remaining.

On the inbounds play, the Bulldogs attempted a 3-point shot from the right side of the key and missed, got the rebound and missed a jumper from the right baseline and got the rebound again and missed again from under the net before the ball went out-of-bounds off a Harrisburg player with 3.4 seconds remaining.

“We fouled and they missed both free throws when they could have taken the lead, but we couldn’t control the rebound,” Fehrenbacher said. “They took three straight shots, but we couldn’t keep them off the glass and then didn’t get the call when the ball went out.”

Following a timeout by Harrisburg, Miller took the inbounds pass in the left corner with Weatherington guarding him. He slid to his right and launched a jump shot just inside the arc with 1.8 seconds left that hit nothing but net as the buzzer sounded to win the game, 48-47.

“We played a good first quarter, but let them go on a 9-0 run to start the second quarter and then got down by nine at halftime,” Fehrenbacher said. “We then had a good third quarter and then we got back to where we didn’t make some shots and they made a few and our guys get tight and they play not to lose.”

Stafford led Harrisburg with five 3-point baskets and 17 points with Davis second with 13 points followed by Weatherington with six, Thomas four, Vallette three and two each from Harrison and Hankins.

“Stafford had a better shooting night in more than a month at least,” Fehrenbacher said. “It was good to him make some shots.”