The Madison Bulldogs may have been more nervous watching Adam Ewy head to the line than Ewy was in going there.
Just 3.9 seconds were left, and with Madison holding a two-point lead over Hartford, the teams’ first-round game at the Lyon County League Tournament would come down to three free throws by Ewy, the sweet-shooting Jaguar point guard. Until free throw No. 3 came down, all the Bulldogs could do was hope that Ewy’s normally pure free-throw stroke would abandon him.
In the end, Madison dodged the bullet — or rather, with the Bulldogs only able to stand and watch Ewy at the line, the bullet dodged them.
Ewy made the first free throw, then missed the second and third, and Madison’s Caleb Hamilton rebounded and eluded Hartford’s fouling attempt to seal the fourth-seeded Bulldogs’ 41-40 victory Tuesday at White Auditorium.
Ewy, who led Hartford with 16 points, was visibly pumped when he squeezed underneath Hamilton and drew contact on his 3-point attempt with 3.9 seconds remaining, shouting and clenching his fist. Not even when he went to the line, he said, did the seemingly enormous pressure of the situation he was in sink in significantly.
“Somewhat, but it wasn’t that much pressure,” Ewy said. “Free throws, you gotta hit ’em.”
Contrast that mindset with the postgame reaction of relieved Madison coach Alan Brown, summed up concisely in one word: “Whew.” When Brown saw Ewy going to the line with Madison nursing its 41-39 lead, he was prepared for Ewy to make at least two and send the game to overtime.
“Of all individuals, I was telling (Hartford coach Chuck Ewy) ... I would never have betted that Adam would miss two out of three,” Brown said. “I figured he would maybe miss one, but he’s probably one of the best free throw shooters on the team, if not in the league.”
Both teams got to the tension-filled last minute by withstanding big runs from one another. Hartford outplayed Madison in the first quarter and jumped out to an early 9-4 lead, then saw the Bulldogs rip off 17 unanswered points to go up 21-9 in the second. Michael Luthi scored seven points during the run, and Kale Schankie keyed the spurt at both ends, scoring five during the run and taking three second-quarter charges.
“Coach always talks about helping on back side,” Schankie said. “So I just like helping back side for the people who get kind of lost or something... but I just kind of stick down below and just kind of get there before they do.”
Still, the Bulldogs couldn’t deliver a knockout blow, and an Ewy three just before the half pulled the Jaguars to 23-15.
Following a Luthi turnaround jumper that put Madison up 37-29 late in the third quarter, the Bulldogs went cold, and Hartford surged. Two free throws by Logan Grieder and another Ewy 3-pointer brought the Jags to 37-34 by the end of the period, and a running layin by Craig Woods and a trey by Michael Wilson gave the Jags a 10-0 run and a 39-37 lead early in the fourth. Madison just couldn’t put the ball in the basket — in fact, on one trip down the floor, the Bulldogs got off six missed shots and had one blocked.
“They aren’t gonna give up,” said Luthi, who led Madison with 15 points. “This is the Lyon County tournament — they’re gonna play hard. We always don’t play as good in the second half as we do in the first, so we’ve gotta fix that.”
With Hartford still up two and a little more than two minutes remaining, Josh Buster found himself open on the right side and ended the Bulldogs’ drought, giving them their first fourth-quarter points with a huge three to make it 40-39. With 34.6 seconds left, Madison’s Henry Ott hit the front end of a 1-and-1 to give the Bulldogs a two-point lead.
Off a pair of Hamilton misses at the line with 24.3 ticks to go, Tommy Smith rebounded and got the ball to Ewy, who dribbled upcourt, got to the top of the key and drew the foul on Hamilton.
“We were just kind of scrambling around trying to get a play, trying to get somebody open,” Adam Ewy said. “Because we drew up a play in the timeout before that, so we at least had some idea of what to do.”
Hamilton was visibly upset by the foul call, but after Ewy’s third-shot miss, he grabbed the board, bolted away from two Jaguar defenders, dribbled behind his back to get away from the sideline and got the ball to Luthi, who lobbed it to the other end of the floor to run out the clock.
“What I’ve been preaching to ’em all year is, we’ve gotta rebound, we’ve gotta really work hard,” Hartford coach Chuck Ewy said. “And when we limit teams to one shot, like we did there at times, it gave us an opportunity to battle back and win it. I was telling them in the locker room, ‘I don’t fault your effort in the second half, but we’ve just gotta be more consistent the whole game.’”
Madison, the defending tournament champion, will take on Olpe in the semifinals at 8:30 p.m. Friday. Hartford will play Burlingame at 8:30 p.m. Thursday.
Madison boys 41, Hartford 40
Hartford 9 6 19 6 — 40
Madison 6 17 14 4 — 41
Hartford — Ewy 16, Barrett 2, Woods 7, Grieder 4, Gardner 2, Wilson 5, Smith 4.
Madison — Luthi 15, Hamilton 7, Kale Schankie 7, Ott 9, Buster 3.
Olpe boys 69,
Burlingame 32
Bradley Argabright scored 17 points to lead top-seeded Olpe to an easy opening-round win on Tuesday in the Lyon County League Tournament.
Cole Krueger joined Argabright in double figures with 12 points. The Eagles will play Madison on Friday at 8:30 p.m.
Olpe boys 69, Burlingame 32
Burlingame 4 9 10 9 — 32
Olpe 21 19 16 13 — 69
Burlingame — Martin 3, Clem 1, Lang 14, Droege 2, Masters 8, B. Vandevord 4.
Olpe — Krueger 12, Miller 9, Argabright 17, Vaughn 5, Redeker 5, Klumpe 3, Dreier 2, Hall 6, Bass 6, Swan 4.
Comments
We allow registered users to post comments on this Web site. To learn more about our posting policies please read our User Poster Agreement Policy.
Posted by Tell (anonymous) on January 28, 2009 at 6:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)
It is a shame that the Olpe girls basketball team wasn't allowed to attend the game and support their boys.
Post a comment
We allow registered users to post comments on this Web site. Our goal with this feature is to encourage thoughtful discussions about the news stories. Using the comment feature to make random attacks on people is not acceptable. Emporiagazette.com neither endorses nor guarantees the accuracy of any user contribution. Responsibility for what is posted or contributed to this site is the sole responsibility of each user. To learn more about our posting policies please read our User Poster Agreement Policy.
(Requires free registration.)