Published: December 29, 2008 11:49 pm      

BOYS HOOPS: Whitko tops Maconaquah in overtime

By JIM McCARTER — BUNKER HILL — Game two of the inaugural American Trust/Beef’O’Brady’s Holiday Classic, featuring the Whitko Wildcats and the host Maconaquah Braves was just that — a classic.

After four quarters of back-and-forth play, Whitko pulled away in overtime, then had to hold off the hard-charging Braves. Maconaquah got a good look at a 3-point shot as time expired that would have sent the game into a second overtime, but it skidded off the rim.

The Wildcats’ 88-85 victory put them in tonight’s 8 p.m. championship game with the Peru Tigers, who won Monday’s opening game 58-44 over North Miami.

The first half featured three ties and 12 lead changes, then the Braves looked poised to take control, opening a 48-40 lead with 3:16 left in the third quarter. But Whitko’s Logan Irwin and Nick Metzger got the Wildcats back in the game. Metzger scored eight points and Irwin added six in the final 3:07 of the third quarter. Metzger’s long three from the left wing just beat the buzzer to knot the game at 54-54 heading into the fourth quarter.

Both teams were in the double bonus for most of the fourth quarter, turning that stanza into a free-throw shooting contest. The Braves hit 9 of 13, while the Wildcats found the net on 7 of 11. The Braves and Wildcats combined to shoot 71 free throws for the game and totaled 46 3-point attempts.

Foul trouble plagued the Braves all night. Maconaquah’s top two scorers, Nick George (22 points) and Brennan Dexter (18) spent a lot of time on the bench due to foul trouble.

“We’ve struggled with foul trouble a lot this year,” Maconaquah coach Luke Zartman said. “We’ve worked on it in practice, and I thought we did a pretty good job in the first half. Our old bad habits crept back in the second half.”

Dexter picked up his 3rd foul early in the third quarter. At that time he was on fire from long range, having hit 6 of 9 3-point shots to that point. After sitting a while he returned, only to pick up his fourth foul with 1:21 to go in the third quarter. Dexter never got his shooting touch back, finishing 6 of 14 from 3-point range before fouling out. George fouled out with seconds left in the fourth quarter.

A free throw by Curtis Hyde with 10 seconds to go in regulation tied the game at 74-all, setting up the overtime period. Hyde finished with 18 points.

Whitko scored the first five points of the overtime forcing the Braves to play catchup the rest of the way. Maconaquah put so much effort into stopping Whitko’s leading scorer, Irwin, who had 29 points, that reserve Travis Lepper became an overtime hero for the Wildcats. Irwin, who had scored just four points in the first four quarters, scored eight in overtime, most on easy layups. His last hoop, with 55 seconds left, gave Whitko an 86-80 lead.

“We were so focussed on Irwin that we kind of got lulled to sleep by Lepper,” Zartman said. “We let him slip away and get some easy baskets. But we’re a young team I liked the way the kids we had on the floor didn’t give up. We had a chance to put the game into a second overtime.”

The Braves meet North Miami at 6 p.m. today in the consolation game.