Bulldogs earn third seed for postseason tournament

After a 60-49 loss to Carterville Tuesday and a 46-42 loss to Murphysboro Friday night last week, the Harrisburg boys basketball team has only two games left and with the Sectional seedings and Regional sites and pairings already decided what’s left for to do is for the Bulldogs is to snap its two-game losing streak and gain some momentum before the regional starts Feb. 26 at Anna-Jonesboro.

“Losing to Murphysboro on Senior Night and it being a conference game and all that was a tough pill to swallow,” said Harrisburg coach Andy Fehrenbacher.

With the two losses, Harrisburg dropped to 18-10 and 3-4 in the SIRR Ohio Division to officially drop out of the race for the title. This week the Bulldogs travel to Carbondale (10-17) Tuesday night and to Herrin (22-7, 6-1 Ohio) Thursday night to wind up the regular season.

“Carbondale is a tough game because they are so athletic, but it’s also a winnable game because there are some things we bring to the table that will be tough for them,” Fehrenbacher said. “It would be nice to win after losing two last week.”

When February opened up Harrisburg still had a slim chance of winning its first SIRR Ohio Division title in 12 years, but that dream will have to wait at least one year more.

February began with Herrin in first place at 5-0 followed by Murphysboro (4-1), Harrisburg (2-2), Carterville (0-4) and Massac County (0-4). Immediately Carterville got off the snide with a win over Massac County, Murphysboro moved into a tie with a win over Herrin and Harrisburg held on to its hopes with a win over Massac County.

The chance for a part of the title was still alive barely with three games left against Carterville, Murphysboro last week and Herrin this week, but that last chance ended at Carterville Tuesday night with a loss that snapped a two-game winning streak.

Friday night on Senior Night the Murphysboro Red Devils came to town and the game was a barnburner in the second half after Murphysboro led 15-5 after the first quarter and 26-14 at the half.

“It was an uphill battle all the way — the first quarter just killed us — we just did a lot of standing around in the first half,” Fehrenbacher said. “Our second half in general was a lot better. We played with a little bit more energy and our offense was a little more aggressive. We rebounded better and got some turnovers. That allowed us to make run at it.”

Sadly sophomore sharpshooter Braxton Murphy suffered an injury in the second quarter and didn’t return to the game.

“Murphy went down with a head injury and was having concussion like symptoms, so we’re just going day-to-day with him right now,” Fehrenbacher said. “We were playing so well after the Carmi Tournament and then lost Cayden Young, who was our leading scorer at the time, for a week with a (freak) knee injury and he’s still not 100% yet and now we might lose our best 3-pointer shooter for the last week and maybe longer. If it weren’t for bad luck we’d have no luck at all. It’s been that way since I’ve been here. It’s affected us really bad. Our offense hasn’t been remotely close to what is before Young got hurt. With Cayden not quite as mobile as he was and not quite the threat as he was we are a lot easier to guard now.”

The Bulldogs came out of intermission a different team immediately cutting the lead to five on an Owen Rann jumper and 3-pointer and an Adrian Mann steal and two free throws when he was fouled in the first minute and a half.

After Murphysboro extended its lead back to nine, Young hit a 3-pointer from the right side and followed with a putback while being fouled, but missed the free throw to leave the Bulldogs down by four. The Red Devils scored the last basket with a minute left to take a six-point lead into the fourth quarter and what a fourth quarter it was.

Murphysboro opened the fourth with a 3-pointer, but again the Bulldogs stormed back beginning with a Young layup followed by Mann stealing the ball and scoring on a layup and canning a 3-pointer from the right corner to cut the lead to two.

With 1:52 remaining the Red Devils held a three-point lead after splitting a pair of free throws and still held that lead after missing two free throws with 1:20 left.

With a minute left Mann missed a 3-point attempt from the right corner, but got the ball back when the rebound went off a Murphysboro player that allowed Fehrenbacher to call a timeout with 47 seconds left to set up the strategy.

When play resumed Young missed a 3-pointer from the left side of the top of key, but Mann got the rebound but lost the ball and eventually Rann ended up with it after it bounced off Young and a Murphysboro player. The senior then found Young for a layup from the right side to cut the lead to one, 41-40, with 31.2 seconds remaining.

After a Murphysboro timeout, Murphysboro had to call a second one before losing the ball on a five seconds call when the Bulldogs’ pressed hard on the inbounds pass.

The second attempt was successful because of a little bit of trickery when Cade Brooks threw the ball back across to AJ Boese instead of throwing it in bounds and Boese immediately used the confusion to get the ball in to Myles Guthman, who was immediately fouled by Rann. The junior made his first, but missed his second to up the lead to two with 25 seconds remaining.

On the inbounds play Brenden Davis threw in to Mann who passed to Ellis at the mid-stripe. Ellis found an opening down the left side of the lane and sank a falling down layup while being guarded by Kemmeon Hale on the inside and Amartez Bankhead in front of him to tie the score with 16.9 seconds left.

However, some confusion caused Davis to foul Guthman on the inbounds pass to send him to the line with a chance to regain the lead with 14.2 seconds left. The junior swished both attempts to give the Red Devils the lead, 44-42.

“What happened was before that there was a timeout when we were still down (41-40) and I said, ‘guys we’re up on the press, we’re trying to get a steal and if we don’t get it we have to foul’ and that’s what happened that time before and they missed one and made one,” Fehrenbacher said. “We then got that basket to tie it and I wanted a timeout and didn’t get it and they in-bounded it fast enough and unfortunately we fouled. No, I didn’t want to foul at that time. To his defense, Davis is just now getting into playing varsity, so he doesn’t have a lot of experience playing varsity in pressure situations. Rider had already fouled out otherwise he would have been in there and Murphy would have been, too, so we were a little further down the bench playing guys at the end of the game.”

After Ellis missed a contested layup a few seconds later, Brooks was fouled and swished both free throws again for the final margin.

“Jalon tried to go in and got hammered and there were nothing called and we fouled again and that was it,” Fehrenbacher said.

Rann led the Bulldogs with 15 points followed by Ellis with 10, Young nine and Mann eight. Brooks led all scorers with 17 points.

The game against Carterville started promising with the Bulldogs coming back from four-point deficit to tie the score, 10-10, with three minutes left in the first quarter. After the Lions regained a three-point lead Braxton Murphy canned a 3-pointer to retie the game, 15-15. Carterville scored before the buzzer to take a two-point lead into the second quarter.

The Lions extended their lead to eight points at the beginning of the second quarter, but the Bulldogs rallied again to pull within two points with 2:30 remaining in the half. However, Carterville closed out the quarter scoring the last seven points, including a 3-pointer with two seconds left.

After the intermission, Harrisburg closed the gap to five points, but Carterville closed out the quarter with a 12-3 run to take a 14-point lead heading into the fourth quarter. The closest Harrisburg could get was nine points with a minute left.

“Carterville shot extremely well — I had them shooting 58% from the field (21-of-33 from inside the arc and 4-of-10 from beyond),” Fehrenbacher said. “We just had and it happened in the first half we gave up four offensive rebounds that led to nine points and then we had two bad turnovers that led to four points, so there’s 13 points there that we should have not allowed to happen. When we would score they answered every time. They made a basket at the end of the first quarter, the second quarter and the third quarter. Everything went in their favor. It was their night. They’re playing pretty well right now.”

Ellis led all scorers with 22 points. Mann and Rann finished with nine points each followed by Young with six and Murphy with three.