Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
BOURBON - With 11 seconds left in Saturday's basketball game, nobody would have wanted to be Ryan Mikel.
Mikel missed not one but two clutch free throws then. Instead of putting Wawasee ahead of Triton by one or two, his misses left the Warriors in a 51-51 tie.
Eleven seconds later, Mikel was the man to be.
After his second miss, Triton had the ball with 9.6 seconds left. They threw the ball away. The Warriors had the ball and 4.5 seconds left.
They inbounded the ball and got it to halfcourt, where Triton's Scott Blackford knocked it out with 2.1 seconds left. The Warriors inbounded the ball at halfcourt. Mikel caught the pass, dribbled once and fired a shot toward the basket from halfcourt.
The ball banked in as time ran off the clock. Wawasee won 54-51.
Mikel, who 11 seconds earlier went to the bench and slammed a chair in frustration, was now a hero. He had lived everyone's dream of hitting a halfcourt shot to win a game at the end. His teammates mobbed him, and he disappeared in the middle of the huddle. The game, the celebration made it feel more like a postseason game.
"It couldn't happen to a better kid," Wawasee coach Jerry Davis said. "That's kind of a cliche, but I really believe good things happen to good people.
"He's leading both vocally and by example. I'm really happy for Mike. The two free throws he missed...there's something not many people know. His elbow is about the size of a grapefruit. He banged it a couple of times, and I think it had gotten stiff on him."
While the Warriors mobbed Mikel, Triton coach Kevin O'Rourke picked up the basketball and walked off the court by himself and into the lockerroom. He sat down in his office, put the game tape into the VCR, picked up the remote and rewound the last nine seconds of the game.
Mikel's shot didn't bother O'Rourke so much. No, what bothered him was what happened after the missed free throws. His team had the ball at home in a 51-51 game with 9.6 seconds left. How they managed to lose this game in regulation is what boggled O'Rourke's mind.
Triton guard Jeff Rupe received the inbounds pass, dribbled up the court and took it to the basket. He tripped, and the ball slipped out of his hands and went out of bounds. Wawasee had the ball the last 4.5 seconds of the game.
If they wait for a good shot, the Trojans probably win the game. If they missed it, the worst that probably happens is overtime.
"I don't have any bright spots," O'Rourke announced. "The only thing I can think of is our kids played hard. The effort was there. The execution wasn't."
The two teams put on a clinic for four quarters. The biggest lead by either team was six points. The two clubs combined for 15 turnovers, what one team usually has after a game. Triton had seven, and Wawasee had eight.
The Warriors scalded the nets, hitting 20 of 33 shots from the field. Thirteen of the 20 field goals came in the paint, a fact not missed by O'Rourke.
"I'm disappointed in the first half, the way we defended," O'Rourke said. "Our whole focus was to not let them penetrate. They had 18 points the first quarter. Fifteen of them were right at the basket.
"That hurt."
The Warriors had balanced scoring. Mikel led with 16, and Brody Stipp, Jay Haugh and Jared Mahnensmith scored 10 each.
"This has been a tough week for us," Davis said. "We felt like we played Northridge and Goshen tough (and lost). They had phenomenal shooting.
"For us to come out 0-3 the second half of the season would have been really hard. We have made significant strides since the start of the season, and the last three games, I thought we played as well as we have this year.
"Our execution, our cutting, our screening and they way we've handled the basketball, we've given ourselves an opportunity to shoot it about every time. That's happened the last three games."
Monesmith led Triton with 23.
The loss ended two Triton streaks. It snapped the Trojans' five-game win streak. It also broke their 10-game win streak at home.
"We didn't even talk about the win streak," Davis said. "After our first 10 games, we decided we were going to take the next six games and worry strictly about Wawasee. We weren't going to focus as much on the other teams as we had been."
The Warriors may be 4-9, but they have lost to the likes of Warsaw, Northridge, South Bend Riley, DeKalb and Plymouth, all good teams this year. Triton played one of those teams, Plymouth, and lost. Triton, 9-3, is a class A school and just does not have the schedule that Wawasee, a class 4A school, has.
"Wawasee's a good team," O'Rourke said. "We knew their record isn't indicative of what they could do. They are an NLC team. They played Warsaw to three points. We knew it would be tough."
O'Rourke watched the last nine seconds over and over. Disgusted, he finally put the remote control down.
"I don't know what to learn from this," O'Rourke said. "The only thing I learn from a loss is I hate losing. That's it."
Triton hosts New Prairie on Friday.
Wawasee hosts Whitko on Friday.
"It was a good Indiana high school basketball game," O'Rourke said. "It came down to the last possession, and we didn't execute."
