Down by two points with 7 seconds to go, a Blair High School inbounds play produced two shot attempts Dec. 20 during the first round of the Eastern Midlands Conference (EMC) Boys Basketball Tournament.
The corner 3-pointer sailed long, while the putback rolled off of the rim as time expired. The eighth-seeded Bears (2-3 overall) lost at home to No. 9 Waverly (1-4) as a result, 48-46.
“It got tipped on the inbound,” BHS coach Chris Whitwer said of the final play. “That kind of threw us off a little bit.”
The Bears previously defeated the Vikings by 10 on Dec. 10. The dynamic between the teams changed during their second meeting, though.
“I thought Waverly played a lot more physical than we did,” Whitwer said. “I thought we came out at first with some really good defensive possessions and had a physicality about it, but, once they amped it up, I thought they won the little plays.”
Blair led 16-9 after one period with freshmen Kalan Steinback and Brevin Leggott scoring a 6-0 advantage less than 2 minutes in.
From there, senior Cooper Sorensen notched his second assist passing the ball to Leggott before Andrew Smutny capped the quarter with another bucket.
Waverly, though, answered back with a 20-10 second period. It led 29-26 at halftime and 39-37 after three quarters when Isaac Clarke sunk an arching 2-point attempt just before the buzzer.
“It seemed like they got the majority of the 50-50 balls,” Whitwer said. “Rebounds went their way this time.”
Blair produced one lead during the final 8 minutes on a Sorensen long-range make, but it was the Vikings who finished out the game ahead. Coach Whitwer's Bears had their opportunities in the final seconds, but a tipped inbound dashed their plan to play the ball inside-out as the final seconds ticked off the clock.
“I thought we recovered really quick on the fly to still give ourselves two good looks at it,” Whitwer said.
In defeat, though, Blair won't play its second EMC Tournament game until noon Saturday. Waverly, meanwhile, moved on and played Norris in the winners' bracket.
BHS BASKETBALL LINE SCORE
Dec. 20
Waverly 48, Blair 46
WHS (1-4) 9 20 10 9 — 48
BHS (2-3) 16 10 11 9 — 46
Scoring: BHS — Kalan Steinbeck 16, Bo Meier 9, Andrew Smutny 9, Brevin Leggott 9, Cooper Sorensen 3.
WHS — Ashton Heffelfinger 23, Carter McMillan 9, Isaac Clarke 8, Cameron Dubas 6, Brady Schieffer 2.
