Westminster suffers shocking loss
The boys from the Westminster Christian basketball team left the floor shellshocked after a 46-43 overtime loss to Genoa-Kingston in the Class 2A Plano regional title game Friday night.
The Warriors seemingly had the game under control after Arturo Gallego's fast-break layup staked top seed Westminster Christian (22-6) to its largest lead of the night 32-18 with 1:15 left in the third quarter.
However, 16 turnovers and 13 missed free throws by the Warriors opened the door widely for the Cogs.
"Give Genoa a lot of credit," Westminster Christian coach Bruce Firchau said. "They battled back. The turnovers and the missed free throws really hurt us. We had chances and opportunities to nail it down and we didn't take care of the ball so we didn't deserve to win. It's as simple as that."
No. 2 seed Genoa-Kingston (13-15) turned up the defensive pressure to ignite its slumbering offense, which had accounted for only 9 points in the first half, a total lowlighted by 0 points in the second quarter on 0-for-10 shooting.
Trailing 21-9 at the half, Cogs coach Corey Jenkins felt the need shuffle the deck.
"We were struggling offensively with some of the sets we were running," Jenkins said. "We said 'Hey, guys, let's just go motion offense move, cut, screen for one another and we'll pick them up full-court man. Let's just play the game, play the game.' And that's what happened."
The Cogs responded after Gallego's layup with an improbable 14-0 spurt to tie the game at 32 with 5:27 left in the fourth quarter.
The run was sparked by 2 steals from senior Bret Lucca (20 points) that resulted in layups, 2 jump shots by junior Andrew Oplt (16 points), a stolen inbound pass converted into a layup by senior Bryan Baumgarten for his only basket and a jumper from junior Matthew Rasmussen (8 points).
The lead changed hands twice in the final two minutes of regulation. Oplt gave the Cogs the upper hand for the first time since early in the second quarter on a putback in transition, but the Warriors regained the lead by a point on an inside bucket from senior Luke Carani, who finished with team highs of 14 points and 11 rebounds.
Westminster senior Andrew Mason split a pair of free throws with 25.4 seconds to play to give his team a 37-35 lead, but the Cogs tied the game when Lucca drove baseline and bounced a pass to Rasmussen in the lane for a layup with 9 seconds on the clock.
"They doubled down and I knew Matt was right underneath the hoop," Lucca said.
Westminster immediately inbounded the ball and moved it upcourt with 4 passes. The ball eventually ended up in the hands of senior center Ian Dutcher in the paint, but he was fouled before he could shoot with .5 seconds remaining.
Jenkins called timeout to ice the 6-foot-8½ Dutcher, a 59-percent free-throw shooter who was triple teamed all night and limited to 6 points. The tactic worked as the bonus free throw hit the back of the rim to send the game to overtime.
The Cogs moved to a 46-40 lead in overtime before Gallego sank a 3-pointer with 6 seconds to play. G-K missed 2 free throws in the super bonus with 5 seconds left. Westminster's Andrew Mason hustled up court with the rebound, but he couldn't get a desperation shot off before the buzzer sounded and the G-K student section stormed the floor in celebration.
The loss was a painful one for the Warriors, who dropped a tight Class 1A regional championship game last season.
"It hurts a lot because our preseason goal was to win a regional after last year's tough loss," Carani said. "And being in 2A, we set the bar a little higher.
"It hurts because I've been with these seniors for a while and I love our whole team. It's just tough to see it fall apart like this, but we gave it our best."
Firchau, an IHSBCA hall-of-fame member, tried to put the defeat in perspective.
Playing basketball is part of an education, and sometimes it's an education of hard knocks," he said. "And tonight was a hard knock. I'll probably ball my eyes out later, but I'm one fortunate coach to have coached these young men.
"As a Christian school you can't just glorify God in victory. Sometimes you have to glorify God in defeat. Sometimes you'd like to have prayers answered differently, but sometimes you have to accept the answers that you get."