Friday, March 29, 2024

Hornets survive in Robinson, move to 3-1 in district play

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The ultimate trap game almost jumped up and bit the Gatesville basketball team on Tuesday as they had to survive two field goal attempts in the closing seconds to leave Robinson with a crucial 59-57 district win.

In sports, the “trap” game is usually the game on the schedule against a subpar team that comes right after a big win and right before another highly-anticipated contest. Coming off of a 53-52 win at La Vega on Jan. 20 and with China Spring next on the schedule the Hornets matchup with the 6-18 Rockets had all the makings of a trap game.

Tied at 55-55 with 1:20 remaining in the game, Trae Miller found Tyler Shea for an alley-oop dunk to put the Hornets on top 57-55 but Robinson’s Trevor Stephens quickly responded with a jumper to tie the game at 57-57.

On the next possession, Carter Williams drove into the lane and dropped off a pass to Shea, who laid it in for a 59-57 lead with 20 seconds left.

Robinson had two shots to win it in the final 20 seconds.

First, Landen Tumbo’s short jumper to tie it bounced off the rim but was knocked out of bounds by the Hornets. Robinson got the ball to Stephens on the inbounds but he was smothered by Miller and put up a contested shot that bounced off the rim securing the Hornets 24th win of the season.

“That is kind of how (Robinson’s) season has been,” said head coach Brit Campbell. “If they can keep games close and hang around then they battle and sneak up and beat people.”

When asked if he thought the tight game was a result of an improved, inspired Rocket team or over-confidence from his own players, Campbell offered a different take.

“Honestly it was probably a combination of all those things,” he said. “I’ve said this to them before but we are getting everyone’s very best games now.”

From the tip, it didn’t appear that a nail-biter would be in order as Gatesville jumped out to a 12-0 lead.

Tyler Shea opened the scoring with a layup then West Allman hit a three-pointer from the corner to make it 5-0. Banner Allman followed with a putback to push the lead to 7-0 then Shea found Banner Allman again for another layup and a 9-0 lead.

Williams capped the game-opening run with a three-pointer of his own to make it 12-0 and it appeared that the Hornets would be off to the races.

But the Rockets battled back outscoring Gatesville 32-15 over the rest of the first half to take a 32-25 lead into the break. At the half, Campbell said he decided against going the Bobby Knight route in the locker room, instead choosing to simply point out where the Hornets could be better.

“I just laid out for them the things we needed to do in order to win the game. In the third quarter we finally woke up and did them,” he said.

The Hornets shot a sizzling 90% from the field in the third quarter scoring 18 points in the paint. They also converted 5 of their 6 free throw attempts to take a 50-45 lead into the fourth quarter. In the fourth, they forced the Rockets into a 3 for 14 shooting quarter and had their largest lead of the quarter at 53-45 before Robinson’s final charge.

Shea led the Hornets with a monster 27 point, 10 rebound night. He was joined in double figures by Banner Allman who had 19 points and 9 rebounds. The Hornets two leading scorers combined to score 34 points in the paint on the night. Carter Williams turned in a terrific all-around night with 7 points, 5 rebounds, and five assists.

The win gave the Hornets a 3-1 record in District 23-4A putting them alone in second place behind 4-0 Connally. La Vega and China Spring are both 2-2 while Salado is 1-3. The Rockets have dropped all four of their district contests.

The first round of district play concluded on Friday night as China Spring visits Gatesville, Connally travels to Salado, and La Vega welcomes Robinson.