NEW HOPE — Drew McBrayer staggered to a black folding chair on the sideline and asked a favor no one who had watched the past two hours of action could refuse.
“Can I sit down?”
After a marathon, triple-overtime win over crosstown rival Columbus on Friday night, the New Hope High School boys basketball coach could finally relax a bit.
The Trojans (13-8, 3-1 MHSAA Class 5A, Region 1) took down the Falcons (9-10, 0-4 Region 1-5A) by a score of 91-85, posting their 10th straight win in the Lowndes County rivalry contest in a fashion that was anything but simple.
“Just another ballgame today, right?” McBrayer joked.
Really, it was anything but, and those on both sides of the Trojans’ jam-packed gymnasium knew it.
Late in the first overtime period, before Columbus’ Jace O’Neal cut a New Hope lead to just one point by making both ends of a one-and-one, a Falcons fan turned away from the action to state matter-of-factly, “Best game ever.”
Little did she know there were still eight extra minutes to be played.
O’Neal split a pair of free throws with 6.2 seconds left in the period, extending the contest. A wild second overtime saw New Hope’s Wilton Bush equalize on a putback layup with nine seconds to go.
And finally, the Trojans did what they’ve done for the past four years against the Falcons, without exception: They took control.
Issace Grady started the third overtime with a layup, freshman TJ Warren knocked down a floater, and Wilton Bush threw down a fastbreak dunk.
And a Columbus team already down two rotation players due to injuries suffered in the junior varsity game only found itself further depleted.
Jayden Tatum fouled out. So did Jakele Phillips. Then Jeremiah Aaron, who had scored a team-high 24 points, failed to realize the intentional foul he gave with 1:09 left was his fifth and final one.
For New Hope, only senior guard Matthew Stennis fouled out. McBrayer said the Falcons’ foul issues “probably” mattered the most of anything Friday night; for Columbus coach Phillip Morris, there was no “probably” about it.
“That made a difference in the game,” Morris admitted.
It was an unforgiving ending for a Falcons team that pulled off a miraculous comeback from 22 points down. A contested, stepback 3-pointer from Tatum with 1:05 left in regulation put Columbus ahead for the first time since the score was 15-14 in the first quarter.
A three-point play from the New Hope freshman Warren sent the game to overtime, but Morris was impressed with his team’s fight.
“You love to see that,” he said. “I’ve seen us in games early in the year just lay down and just give up.”
That wasn’t the case Friday even as New Hope fired up the home crowd with red-hot shooting from deep.
Sophomore Lonnie Shinn Jr. hit three 3-pointers in the first quarter alone, and Warren added two more — plus a nice assist to Marius Mosley — in the second quarter.
It was New Hope basketball to perfection, but the exciting style of play seemed to disappear after halftime.
“We were playing great team ball, moving the ball,” Warren said. “That’s why they came back: We didn’t play no team ball.”
But when New Hope — playing without a senior on the court after Stennis fouled out — needed it, the Trojans found what they were looking for.
And it couldn’t have happened at a better time — or in a better game.
“(T)here were a lot of pressure moments for young high school kids in this environment,” McBrayer said. “You learn a lot about yourself in those situations, you know what I mean?”
Unlike the New Hope coach to his sideline chair, the impact of Friday’s game so soon after its thrilling conclusion had yet to sink in for McBrayer.
By tipoff of the Green Wave’s game Tuesday night at West Point, “it might,” he said.
Rewatching the game, the New Hope coach said, might prove to be even more frustrating than coaching it.
But those who were there Friday night might never stop reliving it.
“I’m sure as a fan it was an exciting ballgame to watch,” McBrayer said.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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