The ending sequence couldn’t have been more perfectly timed for senior point guard Jailon Hill and the West boys basketball team.
The score was tied at 57 with 9.9 seconds remaining in a Feb. 11 game against Maryville.
Hill brought the ball up court, calmly started his drive to the rim with about five seconds left, and put in the game-winning layup with enough time left to erase any doubt he got the shot off, but without enough time for Maryville to counter.
The 59-57 home win for West (20-4, 8-2) locked them into the second seed behind Bearden in what should be a competitive District 4-4A tournament and was the seventh straight win overall for the Rebels.
Given Hill’s composure on the final play, it was hard to tell if there were 10 seconds or 10 minutes left.
“We work on that in practice. We do that every practice,” Hill said.
“Five-second stuff, three-second stuff, two-second stuff, end-of-game type stuff to get us ready for when it’s really playing out.”
It really played out in a wild fourth quarter between two teams with deep postseason aspirations.
Maryville trailed 53-43 early in the fourth, but flipped the game around with a 12-0 run, even while junior guard Brayden Hazelbaker, one of the team’s best players, was on the bench with four fouls.
Junior guard Jonathan Woodlee, who had six points during the run, tipped in a missed shot to tie the game at 53 with three minutes remaining.
Maryville (18-10, 6-4) took the lead with two minutes to go after a steal by Luke Robertson led to a dunk from Eli Owensby.
Kevin Jack tied the game at 55 for West with a post bucket, and with 1:15 left it looked like Maryville may try to hold for the final shot.
But West’s leading scorer Devyn Martin took the ball away from Woodlee, who lost his footing, and dunked it to give West a 57-55 advantage with 50 seconds left.
Maryville missed a shot on the ensuing possession, but got the ball back after Hill couldn’t convert a layup in transition with 35 seconds remaining.
Hazelbaker drove to the rim, drew a foul and sank two free throws to tie the game once again.
Hill wouldn’t miss his next layup.
“I guess that’s what we drew up,” West coach Tommy Eggleston said.
“We just wanted Jailon to attack and have Devyn as an option, and then our two wings lifted, and Jailon ended up getting all the way to the basket and shooting a layup, which is the best scenario for us.”
Even before he closed the game out, Hill was the driving force behind West building a double-digit lead.
West trailed 27-26 at halftime, but held a 49-41 lead by the end of the third. Hill scored 12 points on 6 of 6 shooting in the quarter. He started with some easy ones – a putback and then a steal and a layup – and then hit back-to-back contested jump shots.
“When Jailon has a night like tonight, he’s awfully tough,” Eggleston said. “He was our personality tonight and we needed it, because Maryville’s big guys gave us fits in the paint.
“Normally we pound it in, pound it in and kick it out and shoot 3s, but we weren’t able to take advantage of our height inside because they were also big, so we needed Jailon to attack and I think he did it all night long.”
Martin, a 6-7 senior center who recently eclipsed the 1,000-point scoring mark for his career, led West on Tuesday with 20 points. Hill finished with 16 points, and Jack, who was aggressive in the post early for the Rebels, ended with 10 points.
Despite the foul trouble, Hazelbaker scored 19 for Maryville, including 9 for 9 on free throws. Woodlee had 12 points and Owensby 11 for Maryville, which went 13 of 13 at the foul line as a team.
Maryville was the district regular-season champion last year, won the Region 2-4A championship and advanced to state, but lost twice to the teams above them in the standings (Bearden and West) this regular season.
Still, Eggleston understands the margin for error was tight, and will likely remain that way in the postseason.
“Maryville is a great team, to blow them out would be crazy. We knew it was going to be a fight to the end. We like to play it in the 70s, and we played it in the 50s. And they didn’t let us get out in transition hardly at all.
“And honestly, they had a guy fall down at the wrong time, and that got us the advantage basket, and it could’ve gone the other way and we’d be on the short side of this. But obviously we’re glad we had the opportunity to win it.”
Article written by Matthew Lutey/5Star Preps To read more on area high school sports or to see photo galleries, videos, stat leaders, etc… visit 5StarPreps.com — and use promo code New2024 for 30% off your first year or month subscription.
