Jacksonville Coach Victor Joyner has waited all season for his Red Devils to mesh and become a team.
Going into next week's Class 5A tournament, Joyner said he hopes his team is coming around. On Friday night at Little Rock McClellan, the Red Devils (20-7, 10-4) ruined the Crimson Lions' perfect 5A-Central season with a 68-63 overtime victory.
"This is a pretty tough league and we have kind of been on the skids,'' Joyner said. "We need something to get us back and get re-energized. We've lost a couple and we haven't really been playing as a squad. We really needed to come out and put a good effort tonight. Win or lose, we just needed to compete better than we had at Mills and our last couple of games.
"We have not had that team camaraderie. We haven't had kids pulling for one another. There has been a lot of animosity going on. That is something that is hard to fix. A win like this hopefully will help. This is 20-something games into the season, and we are still looking to be a team. This was a good step toward us jelling as a team.''
Tedric Wolf, who hit 7 of 8 free throws in the fourth quarter and overtime, led Jacksonville with 23 points, 12 rebounds and 4 blocks. Tyree Appleby added 20 points and Devin Campbell scored 12.
In snapping a 14-game winning streak by McClellan (20-6, 13-1) the Red Devils refused to quit and twice made comebacks to stay in the game. After the McClellan's Andre Jones made a layup with less than a second remaining to force overtime, the Red Devils remained composed.
Appleby's pull-up jumper and two free throws by Wolf gave Jacksonville a 58-54 lead in the extra period, and the Red Devils never trailed again. McClellan closed to within 64-63 with 48 seconds left, but Wolf added two more free throws and Carter added one to put the game away.
Keith Hayes led McClellan with 24 points and Jones scored 23.
"The team that deserved to win, won,'' McClellan Coach Chris Threatt said. "Jacksonville made the plays when the game could have gone either way. They made a couple of more plays than we did."
Jacksonville led 13-10 after the first quarter but trailed 22-21 at halftime. The Red Devils finished the third quarter strong and had a 39-37 with 1:37 left in the quarter. But McClellan closed strong and held a 44-39 lead going into the final quarter.
With 3:35 left, Jacksonville regained the lead on Wolf's layup and it held the advantage until Jones' layup forced overtime.
Sports on 02/28/2015