Gardner – Having the game seemingly in hand at halftime, James Monroe had to hold off a late charge but ultimately survived.
The Mavericks withstood a 26-point fourth quarter from PikeView, capping the regular season with a 65-62 win over the Panthers in Gardner Monday night.
Ahead by 14 points after three quarters, the visitors were firmly in control but four minutes in, the Panthers proved they were alive and well, attacking from near and far to start a comeback charge.
“Some of it was us trying to hold on and win,” James Monroe head coach Kelly Mann said. “Sometimes it’s hard to stay super aggressive, and they got really aggressive towards the basket and got a lot of whistles there. They made a lot of shots. They made six or seven threes in the second half, kind of reverse of what we did the first half. They got really hot and made some shots and I wouldn’t say they were all easy shots. A lot of them we had people closing out and they weren’t easy shots but we did enough to hold on, you know? That’s all you can do, enough.”
For the Panthers the comeback charge proved too little, too late. It was made necessary by a second quarter showing that nearly buried them entirely.
Tied at 15 after one, Kadyn Hines broke the stalemate for James Monroe with a three-point play before Ryan Robinette answered with a layup. Unfortunately for the hosts it was the only shot they saw fall in the second quarter as they finished 1-of-14 from the field in the frame.
The Mavericks took advantage.
A Bryce Gardinier 3 supercharged a string of long balls from the visitors. Wil Boggess followed with one to make it 24-19, sandwiching another made by Ryan Mann to push the advantage to 30-19. Hines joined in with a trey and Layton Dowdy capped the half with another, finishing a 6-of-8 assault from downtown in the quarter.
“I just thought offensively we made the right plays,” Mann said. “We kept playing downhill and then when they collapsed we were kicking out and yeah, shots were falling, but they were really, really high quality shots.”
The assault and drought in response put the Panther down 36-21 at the intermission.
“We didn’t execute our offense enough,” PikeView head coach Les Farmer said. “We had a lot of come down, one-pass shots and those were 3s. I remember we were down by maybe seven at the time, and then we came down and had one-pass shots, and that was three straight possessions which led to their points. So, I mean, that was a 15-point differential in that quarter, so that was a big deal. They hit nine 3s in the first half so I mean, that’s a credit to them. They shot the ball well, and I feel like in the second half we ran them off the line way more. I don’t feel like they had the quality shots as we gave them the first half, they only had one 3 made, but they do a good job. They get the ball in the middle and kick a lot and force you in bad situations with your help side.”
The Panthers managed to trim the deficit by a point heading into the fourth and still trailed 52-37 after a Jayden Miller layup but eventually found the tracks. Nate Vestal aided the cause with a 3, followed shortly after by another from Elijah Hall. Drew Damewood ripped four consecutive points to cut the deficit to 56-49 with four minutes to play but Miller had the answer again.
Undeterred, Hall was online from 3 again, later adding a free throw to cut the deficit to five for the first time since the second quarter. Continuously chipping, Robinette connected on a layup to get it to 60-57 in the final minute but the Mavericks finished 5-of-6 from the charity stripe from thereafter to close it.
Bailey’s layup with under six seconds to play accounted for the final points but James Monroe never had to inbound the ball before the clock expired.
“We started hitting shots, but I felt like on the defensive end we started being more physical with them,” Farmer said. “We got our pressure in a little bit and that opened the game up more. I felt like when we started hitting outside shots, they had to guard the perimeter which allowed us to get inside a little bit on them. But at the end of the day, that second quarter, that’s what killed us. That’s the deciding factor of the whole game.”
Gardinier led James Monroe with 16 points while Hines netted 14. Ryan Mann scored 10 for James Monroe to g along with 12 rebounds.
Elijah Hall led Pikeview and all scorers with 18 points in the loss.
JM: 15 21 13 15 – 65
PV: 15 6 15 26 – 62
James Monroe
Wil Boggess 7, Layton Dowdy 5, Kadyn Hines 14, Ryan Mann 10, Jayden Miller 10, Bryce Gardinier 16, Lane Taylor 2
PikeView
Drew Damewood 11, Elijah Hall 18, Bryson Bailey 5, Nate Vestal 11, Ryan Robinette 12, Josh Davis 2, Zayden Farmer 4
