UTICA — Nothing rocks a local high school gymnasium like a Friday night boys basketball game.
Especially when it’s tied eight times.
That’s exactly what happened when the East Knox Bulldogs invaded Utica for their Mid-Buckeye Conference matchup. The Bulldogs, despite grabbing the early lead, were edged by the Redskins, 51-47.
East Knox opened the game by putting up nine straight points and effectively shut down Utica’s inside scoring game.
“Yeah, the kids came out mentally ready to go tonight,” East Knox coach Don McDaniel said. “We didn’t start out the last game well, so I thought it was real important to start out well tonight. They came out, hit a couple of shots and got a lot of confidence.”
Utica’s Michael Sandman, Kelsey Harriman and Jason Hoar connected on 3-pointers to bring the Redskins back. Sandman dropped in another 2-pointer at the buzzer to tie it up at 11 after the first quarter.
“East Knox did a nice job of putting on us right away,” said Utica coach Eric Sheck. “I think it was a wake up call for our upper classmen. They stepped up, and we hit three big 3s in a row.”
The two teams traded blows in the second with East Knox’ Luke Branstool hitting a 3 of his own to put the Bulldogs up 29-25 at the half. Luke Branstool led all scorers with 18 points.
“(East Knox) did a nice job on both our big guys (Charlie Branstool and Michael Sandman),” said Sheck. “They did a nice job of being in their way and making them shoot some off-balance shots.”
Devin Wears hit a jumper midway through the third to boost the East Knox lead to 35-30, but it only took a minute for the Redskins to tie it up again. Utica’s Scott Cline threw in a 3-pointer to tie the game at 35.
After Wears got the lead back for East Knox, 37-35, he turned his ankle badly and had to be helped off the court. Although, he did go back in the game, Wears was hobbled.
“Devin has a lot of heart,” said McDaniel. “He probably shouldn’t have gone back out there, but he wanted to win so badly.”
“It opened up some things for us, but you never want to see a kids go down like that,” said Sheck.
It didn’t take long for 6-foot-5 Charlie Branstool to hit a pair of free throws and put the Redskins back into a tie with the Bulldogs at 37.
On their next possession, Harriman took a feed from fellow Redskin Scott Cline and hit the bucket to give Utica its first lead of the game, 39-37. East Knox’s Michael Hedrick scored near the end of the third to tie it up at 39.
In the fourth quarter, the Redskins went on a 10-3 run with Justin Dassylva dropping in six of those. That put Utica up 49-42 with 1:38 to go. The Bulldogs mounted a comeback when Nick Kidd landed his second 3-pointer of the game to make it a 50-47 game with 39 seconds to go. That was as close as the Bulldogs got, however, as their rally fell short.
“I give a lot of credit to Utica they put a lot of great athletes on the floor, but we do too,” said McDaniel. “Everytime we hit the floor, we feel like we can win it. I’m seeing it in the kids. They’re expecting to win everytime they step on the floor.”
“East Knox did a good job, the whole game, of putting it on us,” said Sheck. “It was a great effort by our kids not to give up and to not back down from them and pull out a win.”
