Late block seals gritty road win for Wash High
CLAYSVILLE — Washington boys basketball coach Ryan Bunting preaches help defense and that’s exactly what was needed to secure a much-needed victory.
With McGuffey looking to take the lead on a layup in the final seconds, Will Callan slid over and swatted the shot away.
Then, he went to the other end, made one of two free throws and the Prexies walked out of McGuffey with a hard-fought 57-55 win in a Class 3A Section 2 game Tuesday night.
“We talk about when one person gets the ball the next person is looking to take the next available person and Will did exactly that,” Bunting said. “He was guarding somebody near the perimeter and recognized that somebody helped down and he had to get to the basket, because that’s where the ball was going. He got an opportunity to get a block from behind because of it.”
With the win the Prexies (2-3, 4-9) put themselves back into the mix for the postseason with half of section play remaining. McGuffey (3-2, 11-4) is now two games behind Bishop Canevin for the section lead and lost the first meeting with the Crusaders.
After Callan missed the second of his two free throws following his block, Aydan Cunningham threw a heave from past halfcourt with less than a second remaining, but it fell short.
The Prexies scored the victory on the back of balanced scoring and offensive rebounding.
Washington began the fourth quarter on an 8-0 run to take a 49-42 lead. Callan and Kelvin McCracken hit a 3-pointer each and Vincent Jackson had a layup.
Cunningham stopped the run with a 3-pointer, but Callan immediately answered with a 3 of his own to make it 52-45.
Sam Stout went 1-2 at the line and Mason Nemeth canned a 3 to get McGuffey within three. Then Cunningham was fouled trying to make a 3-pointer. He made two of his three foul shots to cut the lead to one and that was as close as McGuffey got.
Callan led Washington with 19 points. Tayvone France, Tristan Reed and Vincent Johnson scored eight apiece.
“It felt pretty good to get this win,” Reed said. “We had a rough start to the first half of the season, but getting this win is momentum for our next game. It’s huge.”
Cunningham had a thunderous dunk and a pair of 3-pointers in the third quarter, but Washington kept pace by getting offensive rebounds that led to second chance points.
Reed followed his own miss to score and give Washington a 41-39 lead, but Cunningham hit a 3-pointer late, which gave the Highlanders a one-point lead heading into the fourth quarter.
Reed’s follow late in the third was one of a handful of sequences where Washington scored after getting an offensive rebound.
On their final possession of the first half, Washington had six offensive rebounds before Illias Willis converted a layup.
“That’s the most aggressive I’ve seen us on the glass,” Bunting said. “They were hungry for the ball. If they keep playing with that type of aggression and want to we’re going to put ourselves in many games.”
Cunningham had a game-high 27 points and Jacob Ealy scored 11.
Highlanders coach Mike Fatigante said giving up too many offensive rebounds was too much to overcome.
“We played defense well enough to win, but gave up too many second chance points,” Fatigante said. “We talk about finishing the possession. If you play good defense for 20 seconds, but if you don’t box out and get the stop, then it doesn’t matter. They definitely killed us on the boards.”