Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
MENTONE - There are certain shots that, even if practiced countless times, over and over again, day after day, just will not go through the hoop.
Friday night, south of Mentone, one of those shots inexplicably went in.
And unfortunately for Tippecanoe Valley, the "Shot" was by Bremen, and it resulted in a devastating 47-46 loss at the buzzer.
The Vikings seemingly had pulled out the upset victory over the red-hot Lions, who were 12-4 and winners of eight straight entering the game. Tippecanoe Valley took a 46-44 advantage with 2.1 seconds remaining when freshman Brandon Eaton scored his only points of the night.
Bremen head coach Gary Hudson then called a timeout, and pleaded his case about the amount of time on the clock. Hudson won his case, although it seemed of little importance at the time: 0.8 seconds was added to the clock, giving Bremen 2.9 ticks to go the length of the court.
The Lions inbounded, throwing to senior Jon Rohde at halfcourt. The ball seemingly bounced off Rohde near the scorers' table, but the officals decided otherwise and Bremen maintained possession at halfcourt with 1.4 seconds left.
Next came "The Shot."
Senior Lion Matt LaFree, inbounding the ball, attempted to find an open teammate. When his options were beginning to run low and he neared the five-second violation, he tried to throw over Tippecanoe Valley's Scott Cooksey.
Cooksey, near midcourt, got a hand on the ball and batted it over the midcourt line. With no other players with a chance at the ball, LaFree ran in from where he was inbounding. He got his right hand on the loose ball on Valley's side of the halfcourt stripe, and flung it offbalance from his hip toward the basket as the buzzer sounded.
Needless to say, the shot - later named "highlight of the night" on Fox 28 Sports - went in, and Bremen got past Valley 47-46.
The Vikings were playing the role of "wounded animal," trying to upset the high-flying Lions of Bremen. Valley was playing without its No. 1 and No. 3 scorers, seniors Jeff Brown and Nick Stutzman. In addition, junior reserve guard Andy Young didn't play because of a bout with mono, and Young's cousin, JayDee Parker, saw limited action with a slight case of mono.
Tippecanoe Valley head coach Gregg Sciarra, was still happy with his squad's play following the loss, the Vikings' third in four games.
"They played their hearts out, and it was a real good effort," Sciarra said. "We stuck to the gameplan, and everything was positive except the end result. We showed a lot of character out there, and the kids that played tonight are going to help us play in the sectional, win the sectional.
The Vikings controlled the tempo virtually the entire game. Bremen jumped out to a 17-13 lead at the end of the first quarter, but TV scored 11 of the next 13 by being patient on offense and stifling on defense. The Vikings built a 24-19 lead with 4:46 to play when junior Eric Love scored two of his 14 first-half points. Bremen led 25-24 at the halftime break.
The two clubs traded buckets most of the third frame, but Tippecanoe Valley scored the last four points of the quarter and led 38-33 entering the fourth quarter.
Valley extended the lead to 40-33 with seven minutes to play, and still hung on to a 44-39 advantage when Cooksey scored a duece with 4:50 on the clock. Bremen's Shane Libey hit a big bucket to make the score 44-41 a few minutes later, and followed that up with an even bigger basket, a trey, to tie the game at 44 apiece with 1:07 remaining.
The Vikings retained possession, finding Eaton as time dwindled down, but the slow-down, ball-control just narrowly failed the Vikes in their quest for the upset.
Love led all scorers with 18, and Darren Parker and Aaron Hart added eight each.
Tippecanoe Valley (9-8) travels to Triton (13-4) tonight.
