By Justin Sokeland
WBIW.com
COLUMBUS – Just in case Bedford North Lawrence forgot how unforgiving the mean streets of the Hoosier Hills Conference can be, Columbus East delivered a fistful of reminder. Bloody lip from a first punch in the mouth, black eye from a knockdown, and a loss that left a mark.
That’s life in the big leagues. Better duck, it comes at you pretty fast. The Stars absorbed some big shots, then staggered off the canvas and almost pulled off a miracle in the final round. When the final bell clanged, East’s hands were raised in victory. BNL slumped into a corner and will now have to fight its way back into the conference race.
The unbeaten Olympians rocked BNL with a 13-0 beginning, survived a desperate comeback and settled for a win on points, rather than the knockout, with a 55-49 triumph over the Stars in Friday night’s league opener. Keaton Lawson scored 24 points as East (4-0) ended BNL’s five-game winning streak in the series.
The start was brutal, the finish was amazing. The Stars (3-2) trailed by 20 late in third quarter, with all the danger of a tomato can (boxing’s term for an easy win), then had a shot in the air that would have forced a stunning deadlock with less than a minute left. East had to make four free throws in the final 30 seconds to escape.
BNL never really recovered from the terrible first five minutes, although the remarkable rally during the last 10 would have been pure thievery had the Stars completed the resurrection.
So start with the start. Lawson went crazy, scoring at will on one end (including a breakaway for a one-handed slam) and swatting almost everything BNL launched from the paint on the other. The Stars didn’t score until Logan Miracle powered inside for a 3-point play at the 2:36 mark. That would be the only shot they hit during the quarter, which ended with a 17-4 East lead. And then it got worse.
“We practice our starts so much, and we emphasize it,” East coach Perry Nash said. “For us, it’s our defensive pressure. We have to get out and disrupt.”
While East fended off BNL jabs, it continued to land heavy blows. Lawson whirled through the lane for a basket and Carter Patterson popped a perimeter bomb for a 25-9 lead. BNL showed some life with treys by Quincy Pickett and Patric Matson, but East went to halftime with a 32-18 advantage.
“That’s probably the first time we’ve faced something defensively like that,” BNL coach Kurt Godlevske said. “That team had the most length we’ve seen, and it bothered us at the start. But it all goes back to four games in seven days, not practicing well, thinking we can show up and beat people. That’s my biggest disappointment.”
East continued the attack. The next flurry was a 12-2 run, with Lawson the catalyst. He crashed through the lane for a basket, turned a steal into another breakaway, then snagged another steal, went behind the back under pressure and swooped to a layup. Mason Reeves turned another BNL turnover into a transition bucket for a 48-28 lead.
Then, from prone on the deck, BNL finally found its footing and fought back. As East stumbled around with turnovers, the Stars surged. Miracle rose for a thunderous slam on the baseline, Matson converted Parker Kern’s steal into a layup, then stroked a 16-foot fadeaway. Dax Short buried a corner bomb for a 50-41 deficit with 4:15 left, and the Olympians started to squirm.
Then they got nervous. Miracle muscled home a rebound, Matson swished a wing trey, and East kept coughing up turnovers (7 in the fourth quarter). Pickett popped free for a bomb from the key, and it was 51-49 with exactly a minute left. Look out, BNL’s press forced another mistake, and the Stars got Matson free for a jumper that rimmed off. That’s where the rally faded. Reeves hit two from the line at 30.6, and the Stars missed two more shots.
“I’m proud of the response we had,” Godlevske said. “We have to find that. We battled and started making plays. We’ve lost our way a little. We have to find that emotion and energy we had the last six minutes and bottle that, start carrying it over the rest of the season.”
Nash blamed himself for the East letdown and near meltdown.
“That’s on me,” he said. “We work so much on the start, we’ve never worked on being up 20. People think that’s dumb, but we’ve never worked on that. You have to be in that situation. The kids finished it off, but we’ll get better at it. If we have to work on one thing, which is being up 20, that’s a good thing to work on.
“It was trying to decide how to play that. Do you keep attacking, do you pull it out? We haven’t discussed it, so we were playing in in-between land. We weren’t sure.”
Nash was sure of one thing: Lawson was terrific. He hit 10 of 14 shots and grabbed 9 rebounds. The Stars had no answer for him.
“Lawson is the best player in Columbus,” Nash said, and it’s unsure why he qualified that to such a small radius. “He can hurt you in so many ways. He just beats you so many different ways. Obviously he can score the ball, but now he’s a more developed player all around.”
“That’s the HHC, you have to guard their best player,” Godlevske said. “In the HHC, every team has one of those. We have to do a better job of guarding them.”
Matson finished with 19 points, Pickett totaled 12, while Miracle added 9.
BNL will return to action at unbeaten Silver Creek (5-0 and ranked No.8 in Class 3A) on Dec. 21.
BEDFORD NL STARS (49)
3s FGs FTs R F Pts
5 Dax Short, f 1-4 2-7 0-0 2 3 5
22 Isaiah Sasser, f 0-0 1-4 1-2 3 3 3
31 Logan Miracle, g 0-0 4-11 1-1 6 1 9
10 Patric Matson, g 4-7 6-13 3-7 4 1 19
3 Quincy Pickett, g 4-6 4-9 0-0 6 3 12
12 Jacob Ritter 0-1 0-1 0-0 0 1 0
24 Gibson Crane 0-0 0-0 1-2 0 0 1
4 Parker Kern 0-1 0-1 0-0 0 2 0
Totals 9-19 17-46 6-12 28 14 49
COLUMBUS EAST OLYMPIANS (55)
3s FGs FTs R F Pts
3 Keaton Lawson, f 0-1 10-14 4-5 9 0 24
21 Carter Patterson, f 1-3 4-10 0-2 5 2 9
11 Ethan Bumbalough, g 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 1 0
1 Mason Reeves, g 1-3 2-5 2-2 2 1 7
4 Danny Coriden, g 2-5 2-6 0-0 3 3 6
31 Alex Duncan 0-0 1-3 4-6 2 3 6
13 Anthony Cowan 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 2 0
14 Jayden Thompson 1-1 1-1 0-0 0 3 3
Totals 5-13 20-39 10-15 20 15 55
Bedford NL 4 14 13 18 – 49
Col. East 17 15 16 7 – 55
Turnovers – BNL 13, Columbus East 10
Field goal percentage – BNL 17-46 (.370); Columbus East 20-39 (.513)
Free throw percentage – BNL 6-12 (.500); Columbus East 10-15 (.667)
