Waubonsie Valley holds off Metea Valley in overtime
Legendary Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt may have said it best.
Left foot, right foot ... breathe.
That's what the Waubonsie Valley boys basketball team had to do Friday to hold off upset-minded rival Metea Valley.
The Warriors won 68-64 in overtime in a game that saw junior forward Jackson Langendorf put up a game-high 24 points. Add in 14 from sophomore point guard Tyler Threat and 11 from junior forward Shoi Rathi, and things probably looked good on the surface.
But look deeper. The Mustangs got a whopping 40 points from their bench, including a game-high 17 from junior guard Jahki Gray. Gray was particularly effective down the stretch, putting together his very own 8-2 run late in the fourth quarter that helped send the game to OT.
"That was pretty scary, I can't lie," Langendorf said postgame. "After last time, not that we didn't come in unprepared, but we weren't ready for such a battle. We weren't expecting it, and to pull it out is big, because it was nerve-wracking, to say the least."
Langendorf had a 6-0 run of his own that concluded with 1:44 to go in regulation and his team up 57-51. But then Gray erupted with two three-point plays and two free 2s for good measure to tie the game at 59-59.
"It was momentum," Gray said of his late-game heroics. "I was really just trying to do whatever I could do."
Threat hit a layup with 3.0 seconds left that gave Waubonsie Valley the 2-point advantage, and it looked the Warriors might just escape.
But Metea Valley inbounded the ball and got it to senior forward Charlie Nosek, who missed his shot in the lane. The ball fell right into the hands of junior guard Quentin Schaffer, who promptly laid it up at the buzzer to send the game into overtime.
"I saw Charlie drive to the basket and he put the shot up," Schaffer said. "I saw where it was going and I followed the shot and got the putback. I just wanted to give our team a chance to win in overtime."
In the extra period, the closest Metea Valley would get to achieving that goal was on a layup by Gray at 2:09 that put the Mustangs to within 65-63.
But Threat hit two key free throws with 17.6 seconds to go that essentially sealed the win.
Left foot, right foot ... breathe.
"I was feeling confident," Threat said of those freebies. "I felt like I could work through the noise. It was a rivalry game, so I knew it would be loud."
"He doesn't show a ton of emotion - I'd love to see him show more emotion - but I guess it kind of works for him in that situation," Waubonsie Valley coach Andrew Schweitzer said. "He has really helped us a lot in handling the ball. The sky's the limit for him."
Metea Valley may have lost, but with the depth it has, the Mustangs will likely be a major pain for whomever they'll draw in the playoffs.
"That's the whole goal," coach Matt Logan said. "We don't have the record we thought going in, but we compete and we're going to play hard and we can score. I'm really proud of the execution that the kids had out there today."