“Fortunate” was the way Southern Coffey County head coach Jay Applegate described his team’s 50-45 overtime win over Hartford on Tuesday.
Why fortunate?
First off, senior guard and motor for the Titans Chonner Ludolph was out sick, leaving SCC to roll the dice on some extended minutes for some younger guys.
Secondly, the Titans had a 10-point lead early in the second quarter that evaporated into a two-point deficit with a minute left to play in the game.
Thirdly, with less than 10 seconds to play, Hartford missed the front end of a set of free throws that would’ve put the game completely out of reach immediately following the Titans missing two free throws of their own that could have tied up the game.
And the Titans still walked away winners. Fortunate? Yes, immensely so.
“No one is going to work harder than (Hartford) did and in the first half I felt we played hard and pretty smart,” Applegate said. “The second half we played hard but we didn’t play smart. We were lucky to come out with the win.”
If not for the Jaguars hitting a barrage of threes in the first half, the Titans would’ve buried Hartford early.
The Jaguars had no answer for Titan junior big men Dawson Leimkuhler and Kolgan Ohl who were getting just about everything to fall ending the night with 18 and 15 points each.
“At times they were really good,” Applegate said. “In the second half we took some ill-advised shots instead of running the clock but when they can get the ball inside and get good position, I’d like to think they’re pretty hard to stop.”
But fall the three-pointers did. Hartford hit nine long-range jumpers and five were in the first half.
“We weren’t getting out to guard them on the zone,” Applegate said. “They scored 19 points in the first half and 15 of those points were threes.”
The triple bug popped up again late as back-to-back threes cut into Southern Coffey County’s lead, allowing the door to be open for Hartford to take control.
After the aforementioned free throw misses with less than 10 seconds to go, Leimkuhler did what he does best, slashing his way through defenders on his way to a trip to the free throw line with a second on the clock.
He hit both of them and the game went into overtime.
“We struggled the last two games getting to the line,” Applegate said. “Our goal is to make more free throws than the other team shoots. We haven’t done that the last couple games and tonight we had a hard time getting to the line again because we were impatient. But we made some key ones down the stretch.”
In the extra period, it was again Leimkuhler and Ohl who got the Titans back on top but Hartford had three different trips to the line in overtime and walked away from those trips with just one point, sealing the Southern Coffey County victory.
With the win, the Titans are now 6-3. Up next they’ll hit the road to take on Madison on Friday.
Southern Coffey County (20-4-13-5-8—50) (2pt/3pt-FT-F-TP) Leimkuhler 8/0-2-4-18, Ohl 7/0-1-3-15, Harvey 4/0-0-1-8, Gillis 1/1-0-3-5, Gibson 1/0-0-2-2, Crooks 1/0-0-2-2, Harred 0/0-0-1-0. TOTALS: 22/1-3-16-50.
Hartford (16-3-9-14-3—45) (2pt/3pt-FT-F-TP) Thomas 1/5-0-1-17, Kistner 2/4-0-5-16, Kemmerer 3/0-3-4-9, Neill 1/0-1-1-3, Baker 0/0-0-2-0, TOTALS: 7/9-4-13-45.
PHOTO: Junior Dawson Leimkuhler shoots a free throw in the Titans’ 50-45 overtime win over Hartford. REGISTER/TIMOTHY EVERSON
