Thursday, February 23, 2017
Independence 64, Southwest Guilford 67

For the second straight year the Patriots had to travel to High Point to face the Southwest Guilford Cowboys in the state playoffs.

Last year’s game was a highly contested and controversial game that saw Southwest Guilford come from behind to win by one point 66-65. In that game the Patriots had 22 fouls called against them compared to only 8 for the Cowboys. The biggest controversial call came with 6.1 seconds left in the game. Indy’s Matthew Statile was bringing the ball down court and was knocked to the floor by Southwest’s Kobe Langley. The call went against Statile putting the Cowboys on the line with 2 seconds left in the game.

Fast forward one year and you have Indy going to the line 12 times with three of those trips in the fourth quarter. On the other hand, Southwest went to the charity stripe 28 times with 14 of those coming in the fourth quarter after Indy took the lead. In the final three minutes Southwest took 13 shots from the free throw line hitting on 9 of those and survived a Chea Johnson 3-pointer at the buzzer to take a three point win.

The Cowboys jumped out to a 22-17 first quarter lead on a long 3-pointer by Keyshaun Langley.

In the second quarter the Cowboys went on a 10-1 run to open up a nine point margin and went on to take a 38-30 halftime lead.

Indy came fighting back in the third quarter with a 5-0 run cutting the score to three. Indy tied the score only to see Southwest take a 47-42 lead with two minutes left in the third period. With time running out and Southwest leading 50-46. Indy’s Jordan Mobley hit a 3-pointer cutting the lead to 50-49 going into the final period.

Indy’s Justyn Hamilton gave the Patriots the lead 54-53 with 6:30 left in the game. On their next possession Southwest missed and Justyn Hamilton came down with the rebound. However, Indy lost the ball. The Cowboys came up with the turnover, hit a lay up and Hamilton was called for the foul. Southwest made the foul shot and went back up 56-54 with six minutes left to play.

From this point on the officials whistled the Patriots for 14 fouls. Thirteen of those fouls came in the final three minutes. With 3:05 to go Southwest was in the bonus and in the double bonus with 1:42 left in the game.

However, the Patriots continued to fight pulling within two with 2:30 left in the game. Matthew Statile hit a 3-pointer with 9.1 seconds left to pull Indy with in two. But once again, Indy was called for a foul putting the Cowboys back at the free throw line. Trailing by three as time ran out Indy’s senior point guard Chea Johnson put up a 3-pointer that bounced off the rim, and the Cowboys survived the 15th-seeded Patriots 67-64.

Indy’s head coach Preston Davis said, “This is a tough way to end the season. We had a group of guys that worked hard all year. We had a lot of veteran players on this team and over all we had a good year.”

“We lost to a good team tonight. However, the program is in a good position. This group of seniors helped to keep the tradition going and now we will look to the underclassmen to keep up that tradition.”

“I’m proud of their effort tonight but disappointed in the results.”

Senior Matthew Statlie led the Patriots with 12 points. Jordan Mobley added 11. Chea Johnson and Victor Tshiona had 10 points each. Robert Bonar 8, Matthew Smith 5, Justyn Hamilton and Andra McKee had 4 points each.

Independence 17 13 19 15 – 64
Southwest Guilford 22 16 12 17 – 67