Deerfield-Windsor boys hold off stubborn Trinity Christian to advance
Ken Gustafson
ALBANY —The famous Bachman-Turner Overdrive song “Taking Care of Business” blasted over the speakers at the W.T. Henry Gymnasium Thursday.
And for the eighth time this season, the Deerfield-Windsor Knights celebrated a victory white its raucous student section danced following a 66-61 win over Trinity Christian (Dublin) in the first round of the GISA Class AAA boys state basketball tournament.
The Knights (18-6) will take on John Milledge Academy in the quarterfinals Saturday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. at Deerfield Windsor. John Milledge defeated Heritage 61-50 in the other first round game.
But Thursday’s first-round game against the Crusaders (12-15) was much tougher than most expected.
With 11.9 seconds left and Deerfield Windsor up 63-61, Ryan Toole was fouled and calmly sank both free throws to help secure the hard-fought victory. In spite of the win, DWS coach Gordy Gruhl was not pleased with the way his team played.
“We didn’t play very well,” Gruhl said. “We played about as poor defensively as we played early in the year. We gave up way too many lay ups. Nobody was rotating properly. We just didn’t play very well. I didn’t think we played well on either end of the court.”
Christian Wallace led the Knights in scoring with 19 points, 10 of them in the fourth quarter. Trey Young scored 18, while Chandler Matthews chipped in 10.
The Crusaders jumped out to a 5-1 lead early thanks to a 3-pointer by Matt East and a basket from Wyatt Payne. However, the Knights cut the lead to 7-4 on baskets from Young and Matthews. From that point, it was back and forth between both teams for the rest of the quarter.
Down 17-14 with just seconds left, Matthews drilled another 3-pointer, tying the score at 17 by the end of the first quarter.
Young scored again to give the Knights the lead to start the second quarter. However, East scored again to tie the score at 19. At that point, the Crusaders went on a 5-2 run before Deerfield-Windsor called a 30-second timeout with a little over five minutes left in the half.
The Knights responded by tying the game with under three minutes left thanks to a basket and a free throw from Wallace. Deerfield-Windsor went on a 6-0 run before East knocked down a 3-pointer, cutting the Knights’ halftime lead to 32-29.
Deerfield-Windsor went on a 14-6 run to start the second half thanks to Fallaw, Wallace and Matthews spearheading the attack. Payne continued to keep Trinity Christian close as he scored the Crusaders’ first six points.
However, the Knights extended their lead to 11 on a 3-pointer by Matthews with a little over four minutes left in the third quarter. Both teams traded baskets for the rest of the quarter, but Payne hit another 3-pointer, cutting the Knights’ lead to 51-41 at the quarter’s end.
In the fourth quarter, Wallace took over for the Knights as he scored Deerfield-Windsor’s first six points. However, the Crusaders matched the Knights, keeping the deficit at 10 with 5:17 to go.
But Nick Lewis and Cleve Warnock scored two straight baskets to cut Deerfield Windsor’s lead to 57-51 before Gruhl called time out with around four minutes to go. Both teams traded baskets until East was fouled on a 3-point attempt and made all three free throws with a little over a minute left.
With 38.7 seconds left, East was fouled again and hit both free throws, making the score 61-60.
Young was fouled and hit both free throws to give the Knights a 63-60 lead.
The Crusaders’ Tanner Graham was fouled and hit one of two free throws, but Trinity couldn’t get any closer as Toole and Matthews hit three more free throws to salt away the victory.
Payne led the Crusaders in scoring with a game-high 23 points while East scored 17.
“I’m really proud of the guys,” Trinity coach Robbie Foskey said. “They played hard. I really think we ran out of gas toward the end of the game. Jump shots were coming up short. We started to attack the rim a little bit, but I think we just ran out of gas.”
Gruhl said if the Knights want to punch their ticket to the state semifinals next weekend at Mercer’s Hawkins Arena, they better step up on Saturday.
“We’ll have to pick up our game or we’ll be getting spring sports started,” Gruhl said.
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