Beavers denied late attempt, fall to Lions

Glen Rose Beavers
Glen Rose Beavers

JESSIEVILLE -- When England senior Kevante Davis picked up his fifth foul early in the fourth quarter, the Lions had an 11-point lead over the Glen Rose Beavers in the championship game of the Larry Ray Memorial Tournament at Jessieville Sports Arena Tuesday afternoon.

Senior Tamarous Dodson was benched two minutes later after back-to-back fouls to keep him from picking up his fifth, allowing Glen Rose senior Brendan Hill to hit back-to-back 3-pointers, cutting the Beavers' deficit down to 50-54 with 4:19 remaining. Hill's short jumper just over a minute later hit iron, but junior Ahmad Holmes grabbed the rebound and put it back to cut the spread to 2 before the teams began a back-and-forth that led to Holmes reeling in a long pass from senior Brayden Lyons for an uncontested layup with 1:52 left.

"I thought our kids responded well, but our best player, Kevonte Davis fouling out with seven minutes to go, that's when the tables kind of turned a little bit," said first-year England head coach Trent Morgan. "We've got some guys that are seeing a lot of action for the first time, like Jamal Shorty, Darren McClinton and Traejon Blake, so I thought we responded well with our best player going out."

England (11-1) pushed out to a 59-56 lead with under a minute remaining before Holmes completed a 3-point play to knot the score again with 34.2 seconds to go. Dodson lifted in a layup with 28 seconds left, and Hill's last-second attempt to force overtime rimmed out for the 61-59 England victory.

"Well, we knew they were going to come out and pressure us," Glen Rose head coach Devin Jones said of the fourth quarter. "Honestly, we thought if we could just handle the pressure, we'd end up getting a good look, but they're super athletic.They won a state championship last year for a reason. They're really good. They rebound the ball really freaking well.

"We got a decent look at it, got it in the right players hands. It didn't fall this time. He had a game winner actually last night with the exact same shot."

Morgan was not surprised to see the game come down to the final seconds.

"We played them about two weeks ago at our place, and it was an 11-point game," he said. "And No. 2 [Lyons], he had 42 points. So he really lit us up the first time 21 points first half, 21 second half the last time we played, but I figured it would be close. We started running away a little bit, but then we got in foul trouble. So yeah, it came down to the wire; that's what a championship games supposed to do."

Dodson put the Lions on the scoreboard first with 1:34 off the clock in the first period, and Holmes responded with a bucket of his own 20 seconds later for the Beavers (5-5) to tie the game up. The two teams traded buckets until a 3-pointer by Davis gave the Lions an 11-7 lead with 3:39 left in the period.

Hill found Holmes on a pass to cut the deficit to 2, and after a bucket by England senior Marvin Shavers, Glen Rose junior Deshuan hit a 3 off a pass from Hill to cut the deficit back down to 13-12 with 2:09 remaining. Lyons responded to a Davis layup to tie the game at 15-all with 1:13 remaining before getting fouled with 0.5 seconds left in the first quarter on a 3-point attempt, making two of three.

England pushed out to a 23-19 lead with 1:01 off the clock in the second as Davis hit Dodson for an alley-oop dunk, and the Lions continued to stretch their lead out to take a 30-22 edge with 3:14 left in the half. Glen Rose managed to cut the deficit down to 32-27 by halftime.

The Lions opened the second half on a 7-0 run to take a 12-point lead with 1:50 off the clock, and while Glen Rose pulled within 8, England opened the spread to 43-28 with 3:45 left in the third. The Beavers slowly chipped away at the deficit, pulling within 45-34 going into the final frame.

"I thought my kids played hard," Jones said. "We're generally a physical, physical team, and it doesn't fit well when there's very soft-touch fouls, but they played hard honestly. We competed, which is kind of what I look for, so I'm fine with it."

Dodson finished with 31 points, 7 rebounds and a block to lead the Lions. Davis added 15 points before fouling out with 2 assists and a steal, and Shavers had 9 points. Traejon Blake had a game-high 5 assists with 4 rebounds and 2 blocks.

Lyons led the Beavers with 20 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks and a steal. Holmes added 17 points with 6 boards, and Hill had 17 with 3 boards, 3 dish-outs and a steal.

Sports on 01/01/2020

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