Bulldogs get back on winning track
After losing three straight games because of a combination of top-notch competition, a key injury and the flu, the Harrisburg boys’ basketball team got its season back on track just in time with two wins to improve to 18-8 with four tough games remaining over the last two weeks of the regular season.
“If we hadn’t beat Anna-Jonesboro we very well could have gone in a tailspin like what happened at the end of last season when we lost the last six games of the regular season,” said Harrisburg coach Andy Fehrenbacher. “Since Cayden Young’s injury and all the illness we had Friday night at Massac County was the best we’ve played since all that has gone down.”
This week the Bulldogs return to the SIRR Ohio Division races sitting in third place with a 2-2 record behind Murphysboro (20-4, 5-1 Ohio) and Herrin (20-6, 5-1 Ohio) Tuesday night at Carterville (12-12, 1-4 Ohio) and hosting Murphysboro Friday night on Senior Night to solidify that spot over Carterville and Massac County (11-13, 0-6 Ohio).
“Going into this week we are starting to get healthy,” Fehrenbacher said. “Hoping after our win at Massac we’re back on track and catching our stride where we were around the Carmi Tournament. This is a big week with two conference opponents, two rivals and two potential sub-sectional opponents.”
Harrisburg finishes its regular season schedule on the road with a game Feb. 18 at Carbondale (9-16) and at Herrin Feb. 20 before the regional begins either at Anna-Jonesboro or Hamilton County.
After the week got off with the Bulldogs third loss in a row to Benton (21-2) at home, 47-34, despite the return of Young, who had missed three games with a knee sprain suffered Jan. 25 against Fairfield.
Against Benton, which is tied with Pinckneyville for the SIRR Mississippi Division lead, the Bulldogs trailed 14-9 after the first quarter and after Young gave Harrisburg its only lead of the game, 17-16, with 4:30 left in the second quarter, the Rangers closed out the half on a 9-2 run to take a six-point lead into intermission.
“After Young gave us the lead, we took some shots that weren’t necessarily the best shots and had a turnover in there,” Fehrenbacher said. “This was the second time we’ve played Benton and they defended us totally different this time. First time they played zone and this time man and both times we struggled to score. I thought defensively we were pretty good, but we just didn’t score enough to beat them.”
Jalon Ellis opened the third quarter with a one-handed shot from the lane to cut the lead to four, but that was as close as the Bulldogs would get as they fell behind 34-24 after the third quarter.
Ellis led the Bulldogs with 10 points followed by Owen Rann with nine, Young six, Adrian Mann five, Braxton Murphy three and Reed Rider one.
The next night Harrisburg snapped the longest losing streak of the season with a 58-52 win over Anna-Jonesboro at Davenport Gymnasium in a remake of a game that was postponed Jan. 11 because of the ice storm and followed with an Ohio Division win at Massac County, 55-41, Friday night.
“Beating A-J and beating Massac has solidified us as either a three or four seed,” Fehrenbacher said.
In less that 24 hours after the Benton game had ended the Bulldogs were back at Davenport Gym starting with Young winning the tip followed by a jumper by Rann 21 seconds later. Young added a layup as the Bulldogs jumped out to an 8-3 lead in the first three minutes.
With the Bulldogs still leading by five with 3:04 left, the Wildcats went on a 10-5 run to tie the score, 15-15, heading into the second quarter. The Wildcats rally continued with an 8-4 rally to open the second quarter and take a four-point lead with 3:42 left in the half.
Murphy cut the lead one with a 3-pointer 17 seconds later and after a timeout Ellis gave the Bulldogs the lead on a layup and Murphy gave Harrisburg a four-point lead at the half with another 3-pointer from the left corner with 44 seconds left.
Harrisburg extended its lead to seven points with 2:58 left in the third quarter and still led by seven with 1:50 remaining when Anna-Jonesboro scored the five points on a 3-pointer with 1:33 left and a layup with 40 seconds remaining to cut the lead to two heading into the fourth quarter.
The Bulldogs extended their lead back to four in the first 2:10 of the fourth, but the Wildcats clawed back tooth-and-nail to tie the game with 40.3 seconds left. With less than three seconds left Ellis missed a layup. Rann was fouled taking a shot on the rebound and went to the line with 2.4 seconds remaining with a chance to win the game in regulation time.
“The bad thing when Owen was fouled he came down and fell right on his right elbow and his hand kind of went numb,” Fehrenbacher said. “It was kind of hard to shoot free throws with a numb hand. I asked him if he wanted to come out and he said he could shoot, so I left him in.”
Anna-Jonesboro opened the four-minute overtime period with a jumper from the free throw line, but the Bulldogs took charge starting with Ellis going to the line and splitting a pair of free throws and following with a layup to give Harrisburg the lead for good.
The Bulldogs closed out on a 9-4 run starting with a Mann pullup jumper from the free throw line and two free throws with 35 seconds left. Ellis sealed the win with four free throws in the last 13 seconds.
“What was really strange about the overtime was Adrian had not been playing all that great, but for some reason in that overtime all of sudden his game kicked up and he made some really big plays,” Fehrenbacher said. “They were making shots down the stretch until we finally got them to miss some. Mann just did some stuff and willed us to a victory.”
Ellis led the game with 24 points with Mann next with nine, Young and Murphy eight each, Rann seven and Rider two.
Friday night the Bulldogs left the confines of Davenport to make the 45-mile trip to take on the Patriots, who were just a game under .500 at tipoff.
Harrisburg beat Massac County at Davenport on Dec. 20, 55-36, and again a week later, 68-56, at the Eldorado Holiday Tournament, but the Patriots are better at home with a 5-4 record than they were on the road in true road games winning just one of six.
The Patriots came out like the home warriors they are jumping out to an 11-6 lead and holding a 14-9 lead after the first quarter. Rann opened the second quarter with a 3-pointer and Young seemed to have recovered from his banged up elbow making his only two free throw attempts of the game to tie the score, 14-14.
After the Patriots regained the lead on a jumper, Rann scored on an old fashioned three-point play when he was fouled on a successful layup and made the free throw to regain the lead for good, 17-16, with 5:30 remaining.
Ellis scored after grabbing a rebound on one end of the court and going the distance for a fast break layup to up the lead to three. After the Patriots cut the lead back to one, the Bulldogs closed out the first half on a 7-2 run, including Rann sinking a 3-pointer with 10 seconds left to take a 26-20 lead at the half.
“For whatever reason they came out fired up to take the lead into the second quarter, but we went on a 12-4 run to take a six-point lead at the half,” Fehrenbacher said.
The Patriots cut the lead to four at the beginning of the third period and again a minute later, but that was as close as Massac County would get the rest of the game. The Bulldogs extended their lead to nine with two minutes left in the third quarter and extended that to 15 with 1:25 remaining in the game.
“It’s been since the 2012-13 season (when Harrisburg won the state title) we’ve beat Massac County three times in a season,” Fehrenbacher said. “For the first time Cayden felt a lot better. He’s still not 100%, but he moved better Friday night than he has and it showed with him and with our team. He just has to get his shooting touchback.”
Rann led the Bulldogs with 15 points, including four from beyond the arc, with Mann scoring 14, including two 3-pointers, Ellis 13, including 7-of-10 from the free throw line, and leading the team with nine rebounds. Murphy finished with six points, Young five and Rider two.