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2/22/2019
By Dan Manley
Advocate Sports Editor
Down by as many as 15 points in the first half, the Montgomery County Indians came storming back Friday night to score a 72-62 win over the Harrison County Thorobreds in the regular season finale at the MCHS Arena.
The victory was the seventh in a row for the Indians, improving their record to 18-11 going into this week’s 40th District Tournament at Bourbon County, where the Indians were slated to play the host school Tuesday night in the semifinal round.
The night ended with senior guard Duce Ralls hitting the second of a pair of free throws with just seconds remaining on the clock to score the 1,000th point of his career, capping off a 30-point night.
Rough start
The Indians struggled in the early going.
After they led 13-10 midway through the opening quarter the Thorobreds went on a 13-2 run to end the quarter with a 23-15 lead.
From there, the visitors moved out to a 32-17 lead midway through the second quarter and the Tribe seemed to have no answer for guard Quenton Turley, who scored 14 points in the first half when he hit six of eight field goals and his only free throw.
Senior Thomas Thompson hit four of six field goal attempts in the first half and Spencer Free, another senior, was three of five, including a pair of three-pointers as the ’Breds scorched the nets for 70.1 percent in the first half (17 of 24), including four of seven three-pointers.
Meanwhile, the Indians were firing up three-point attempts in the first half, but few were going in. In fact, they would end the evening having made just six of 26 three-pointers, including going 0-5 in the second half.
So the teams went to the halftime break with Harrison County owning a 40-28 advantage.
New look
The game changed dramatically in the second half when the Indians started working the ball inside.
In the second half the Tribe hit on 15 of 27 field goal attempts and simply put the clamps on the ’Breds after the intermission.
While Ralls was piling up the points in the second half (20 of his 30) primarily on hard drives to the basket, Will Cockrell was hitting on short jumpers (six of eight) and Austin Eichenberger was dominating on the defensive end while also scoring eight points after the intermission.
The lineup
“We’ve simply gone with lineups that seemed to be good matchups for us here in the last several games,” said Coach Matt Daniel.
Freshman guard Hagan Harrison and senior forward Pharoah Davis started the game for the Indians but didn’t play much in the second half.
“It wasn’t a question of those guys not playing well, it was just that we seemed to create the best matchups against Harrison with the other guys in there.”
What the Indians had in the lineup for most of the second half were three guys who were scoring in Ralls, Cockrell and Eisenberger and two guys who were playing their roles.
Seniors Jon Kosier and Dylan Young had only two points between them in the second half but they were defending, moving the ball on offense, blocking off the glass and helping create scoring opportunities for their teammates.
“Austin’s on-the-ball defense in the second half was some of the best anyone has played for us all season and it really helped take them out of their offensive sets,” Daniel said.
“And Duce started doing what we’ve seen him do a lot more during the second half of the season—take the ball to the basket. We have Duce and Hagan and Austin that have that ability to take the ball to the basket and when they’re doing that things open up from the outside and those shots start falling, which we weren’t getting accomplished in the first half.”
Five in double
figures
Harrison County saw their record drop to 9-18 on a night when they had all five starters score in double figures.
The season has been a challenge for Coach Larry Kendall with their leading scorer, Quenton Turley, missing most of the early part of the year with an injury.
Even with that, the Thorobreds lost to Clark County (70-65) and Bourbon County (74-69) during January and were coming off a 75-70 win over Mason County entering Friday night’s game.
The Thorobreds were slated to open the post-season against Pendleton County with a great chance to enter the 10th Region Tournament next week at Mason County.
“They can be a very tough out for almost anyone there,” Daniel noted. “Just look at that first half. If they duplicate that effort against us then we’re talking about us not even being in the game.”
Better defense
Over the final seven games of the regular season, all victories, the Indians limited their opponents to just 47.3 points per game.
In the first 22 games of the season while the Tribe was posting an 11-11 record the Indians allowed an average of 65.1 points per game.
Although much of that improvement seemed to come with the Tribe implementing a 2-3 zone, the man-to-man was highly effective against Harrison County Friday night.
“I definitely feel like we have different things we can do successfully on defense,” Daniel said.
Harrison County (62) — Quenton Turley 7-18 3-3 18, Tyler Linville 4-6 2-2 11, Blake Price 4-7 1-3 10, Spencer Free 4-12 0-0 10, Thomas Thompson 5-9 1-2 11, Clay Carpenter 1-2 0-0 0, Casey Sledd 0-0 0-0 0, Gunner Cole 0-0 0-0 0, Logan Cummins 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 25-54 7-10 62.
MCHS (72) — Duce Ralls 10-21 8-12 30, Hagan Harrison 0-4 0-0 0, Will Cockrell 7-14 2-2 17, Pharoah Davis 2-6 0-0 4, Jon Kosier 3-6 0-0 8, Dylan Young 0-2 0-0 0, Austin Eichenberger 3-6 2-2 8, Brandon Dyer 1-1 0-0 2, Luke Fuller 1-4 0-0 3. Totals 27-59 12-16 72.
HCHS 23 17 8 14—62
MCHS 15 13 19 25—72
Three-point field goals — Harrison County 5-16 (Turley 1-3, Free 2-9, Linville 1-1, Price 1-2); MCHS 6-26 (Ralls 2-9, Cockrell 1-4, Kosier 2-5, Fuller 1-4). Rebounds — Harrison County 34 (Thompson 6); MCHS 36 (Davis 10, Cockrell 5). Turnovers — Harrison County 17, MCHS 9. Total fouls — Harrison Co
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