Down by 13 points early in the third quarter, the Carthage Tigers Boys basketball team rallied against Seneca on Saturday to win and take fifth place in the 72nd Annual Carthage Boys Invitational Tournament.
The Tigers beat the Indians 52-40 by outscoring them 37-12 in the final 13 and a half minutes of the game.
“To get two wins in this tournament is always a good thing for us,” said Tigers Head Coach Steve Ray. “We’re hoping that will be good momentum for us at the beginning of the season.”
Tucker Downing led the Tigers with 11 points, including a vital four-point play toward the end of the second quarter that kept Carthage within striking distance of Seneca during a period in the game when the shots just weren’t falling for the home team.
Taris Jackson, Tyler Mueller and Joel Pugh each scored eight points, Morgan Frisinger scored seven points, Patrick Carlton scored six points and Alex Martini scored four points.
Both teams started out slow and the first quarter ended in a 5-5 tie. The Tigers scored four quick points to take a 9-6 lead early in the second quarter, but Carthage went cold from the floor for more than five minutes.
Seneca went on a 13-0 run to take a 19-9 lead before Downing was fouled on a three-point shot. He hit the free-throw for the four-point play to pull the Tigers to 19-13, then Seneca scored with 26 seconds left to take a 21-13 lead into the locker room.
“I didn’t like our energy level, I didn’t like our toughness in the first half, part of that’s to be expected this early in the season,” Ray said. “But our kids were resilient and sometimes that’s more important than the x’s and o’s stuff. I give the credit to the players, it was not much of a coaching move on our part, it was just those guys playing hard on their part.”
Seneca came out of the break hot and built its lead to 28-15 with 5:30 left in the third quarter, but the Tigers stiffened and began to claw their way back.
Carthage outscored Seneca 14-2 and trailed by one, 30-29 by the end of the third quarter.
The Tigers’ Pugh tied the game 30-30 with a free throw with seven minutes left in the game, then Carthage took the lead for good at 33-30 on a Downing three-pointer.
Seneca kept it to within two points until the five-minute mark when they trailed the Tigers 36-34.
Then Carthage broke the game open with a 9-0 run to go up 45-34 with 2:45 left in the game.
The Tigers hit 12 of 18 free throws in the final quarter to keep Seneca at bay and take the 52-40 win.
Carthage moves to 2-1 on the season and will play next at Frontenac, Kansas at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Dec. 7.
Note: The scoreboard at the end of the Carthage-Seneca game read 52-41, but the official scorer’s book for the game had Seneca with 40 points, and a check of individual scorers for Seneca confirmed the 52-40 total.
Up next: The Carthage boys and girls travel to Frontenac, Kansas to take on the Raiders. Games begin in Frontenac at 4:30 p.m. with the Lady Tigers varsity game scheduled for 6 p.m. and the Tigers varsity scheduled for 7:30 p.m.
