LAFAYETTE - The Triton boys basketball team is really beginning to like the Marion L. Crawley Athletic Center at Lafayette Jefferson High School.
Over the past four years, the Class 1A No. 2 Trojans (23-2) have played there three times, going 3-0 with each victory earning a trip to the state finals.Their latest visit to the Lafayette Jefferson Semistate came Saturday and their latest victim was No. 12 Rockville (21-7), which fell 44-42 in overtime.
"Our kids prevailed in the end again," said Triton coach Jason Groves, who saw his team outscore the Rockville Rox 4-2 in the extra period. "That's kind of what this team's been about all year long."
The Trojans move on to Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis to face Indianapolis Metropolitan. The 21-6 Metropolitan Pumas advanced to the 10:30 a.m. Class 1A state championship game by downing No. 5 North Daviess 61-50 in Saturday's Southport Semistate.
Against Rockville, Triton was in a back-and-forth contest that saw eight lead changes and six ties, with the largest lead being held by Triton when it led 9-3 midway through the first quarter.
"I thought we battled," Rockville coach Dave Mahurin said. "The one thing we've done all year is just battle people. We've never been real pretty. Fundamentally, we've gotten better, but we still struggle against really good defensive teams. I'm proud of them. We just lost by a bucket to probably the best team in the state."
According to Groves, battling would be a good word for what the Rox were doing.
"They got after us," he said. "They knew our Achilles' heel, and they came out and were physical with us. It frustrated us a little bit."
The physicality may have frustrated the Trojans, but Mahurin was frustrated by his team's offensive passiveness, which led turnovers on its first three possessions.
"Offensively, we just never attacked their trap," Mahurin said. "We were so passive. We turned it over, but that's a credit to Triton."
On the afternoon, Rockville committed 22 turnovers, 13 of which came in the opening half. But even with all the turnovers, Rockville only trailed 23-22 at the intermission.
In the second half, the Rox cut the turnovers down and grabbed the lead at 26-25 following back-to-back buckets by 6-foot-6 sophomore Lane Mahurin midway through the third quarter.
After that, the lead changed hands three times and the score was knotted three times, the last coming at 40-40 following a Lane Mahurin free throw with 1:23 remaining in regulation.
Down the stretch, Triton had a chance to win the game, but the play drew up during a timeout with 10 seconds remaining was thwarted by the Rox.
"We had a shooter in the corner, Griffyn (Carpenter) in the post, so we were either trying to dump down to Griffyn, kick out to Jordan (Everett) or have Clay (Yeo) finish," Groves said. "They did a nice job of taking that away and forcing (Clay) to his right when the play was designed for the left."
With his options limited, Yeo was forced into a contested jumper at the top of the key, which was off, leading to overtime.
In the final four-minute period, Triton's lone points came from free throws by Carpenter and Yeo, then the defense held in the final moments when Rockville senior Zac Kempf missed a three-pointer from the right corner as time expired.
"Once I saw it wasn't going to go in, it was just overwhelming," Everett said about the final moments of the game.
According to Mahurin, the play was designed to go to sophomore guard Gary Ulrich, who had already hit 3 of 5 three-pointers.
After running the play successfully earlier in the fourth quarter, the Triton defense wised up, forcing Rockville's center to take the shot, even though he was 0 of 6 from three-point range this season.
"Probably should have called a timeout, but at the same time, he's hit that shot before and we could have won the game," Mahurin said. "We were really going to try to get it to the rim if Ulrich wasn't open, but kids take what they see and that's what they saw."
When the shot missed, what the Trojans saw was another trip to Conseco Fieldhouse.
"I think this is the sweetest because it's our senior year," senior Austin Davis, who finished with nine points, said. "When you're a freshman and sophomore, you don't quite know what it means until you're a senior and every game could be your last."
Everett, an academic all-state honorable mention player, shared Davis' sentiment on this year's semistate title.
"It's my senior year and the way I wanted to go out - getting back to Conseco," Everett said. "Last year's loss at the regional kind of stung a lot, but now, we're going back. It's awesome."
Senior Griffyn Carpenter led Triton with 23 points, leading Groves to say each state run belongs to that team's respective senior class.
"It's just different each year," he said. "Each one is special. The first one was our first time there and I think those kids kind of laid the foundation for our program. Those kids are partly responsible for the success we're having. The second year was them perservering. Nobody expected us to be there and those kids just overachieved. This group just refuses to lose. They just find a way to get it done.
"Throughout their four years, I can count on two hands how many losses we've had," Groves added about this season's senior class, which has gone 94-11. "They've made it to the state finals three out of their four years. It's just a really special group. That's what it takes to build a program, because year after year the kids believe they can win and follow the groups ahead of them."
