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Kilpatrick, ’Dogs use late foul shots to beat Wildcats
By BOB ETTINGER
STRUTHERS
There’s a punishment for the Lakeview boys basketball team for missing free throws in practice. That wasn’t necessarily going through the mind of Brendon Kilpatrick in the final minute of the Bulldogs’ 64-62 victory at Struthers in Northeast 8 action on Tuesday night, but it’s fairly safe to say he filed that lesson away.
Kilpatrick was good on all four of his free-throw attempts in the last 55 seconds of the fourth quarter to help hold off the late-charging Wildcats.
“We always want to be confident on the line,” Kilpatrick said.
“That’s the big thing. We practice free throws a lot. We have to do push-us if we miss. We’ve got to be confident and knock them down.”
The Bulldogs (5-1, 2-0) saw a 51-41 lead to open the fourth period evaporate to just two, 62-60, following Kevin Traylor’s 3-pointer for Struthers (2-3, 0-1) with 28 seconds left. Ronnie Leonard stole the Lakeview inbounds pass and the Wildcats missed a layup in traffic.
“That’s what we were trying to do in that spot,” Struthers coach Mike Wernicki said. “I feel terrible for Kevin. He plays hard every night. As disappointed as I might be with that layup not going in, I know it’s worse for him. In our program, our games are won by the players and they’re lost by me. We made plays down the stretch, but it was just one play too little. I wouldn’t trade this group for anybody. All I can ask for as a coach is a group of guys who plays hard for me.”
Kilpatrick gave Lakeview breathing room with two free throws in the double bonus with 11 seconds left.
“That’s a good basketball team,” Lakeview coach Ryan Fitch said. “When they got that defensive stop and scored the first basket of the second half, I told my assistant it was going to be a two- or three-point game. That’s too good a basketball team for it not to have been. Mike’s a good coach and they play hard. I knew that was going to happen.”
The Bulldogs used a 22-4 run over nearly six minutes in the second period to take a 37-23 lead at the half.
“The kids share the ball well,” Fitch said. “We have some great shooters, especially Daniel Evans. We were trying to give our shooters some space.”
Evans and Dawson Brown led the Bulldogs with 16 points while Carson Ryan paced Struthers with 20.