McCallie's Eric Rivers drives to the basket in a game Wednesday night against Howard. Rivers led all scorers with 27 points as the Blue Tornado came from behind to edge the visiting Tigers, 59-58.
photo by Dennis Norwood
Most everyone who knows anything about high school sports in Chattanooga knows that McCallie’s Jay Hardy is an outstanding football player.
He proved on Wednesday night that he’s also pretty good on the basketball court as he hit the game-winning shot as the Blue Tornado rallied with a strong second half to beat the Howard Hustlin’ Tigers.
Hardy only scored 11 points in his latest game, but the 3-pointer from the top of the key with six seconds left was the difference as McCallie improved to 8-10 overall with the hard-fought, come-from-behind 59-58 victory.
Howard falls to 12-3 overall and snaps a five-game winning streak.
Howard coach James Talley would have loved to get a win in McCallie’s gym, but he was just happy with the way his kids played.
“That was a hard-fought game, but we knew it would be. Their guy just hit a big shot at the end. We contested it and had pretty good coverage, but he stepped up and made it,” Talley praised Hardy’s game-winning shot.
“I can’t be too upset because we’re playing better team basketball. I saw a lot of good things out there tonight and I found out just who I can count on in tough situations. But it’s games like this that make us better and I’m glad we played it,” Tallen concluded.
Ironically, Howard had hit a last-second 3 last Monday to pull out a 46-43 victory over McCallie. McCallie coach David Conrady just wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again.
“We were hoping that Eric Rivers would get in the paint and get an open shot, but he couldn’t and made the perfect pass to Jay Hardy and he made a huge shot,” Conrady expressed outside the McCallie dressing room.
“They executed that last play to perfection, but it wouldn’t have happened if Boon Elliott hadn’t got the rebound on the other end. We’re mighty young and we’re just trying to learn how to win games like this, but every win is huge for us at this point as they’ve been hard to come by so far.
“We had been in that situation before and didn’t want it to happen again,” the veteran coach added.
The first half belonged to the Hustlin’ Tigers. They roared at the start by scoring 13 of the first 16 points and had a 13-5 lead when the first quarter ended.
It was more of the same in the second stanza as McCallie shot poorly from the field while Howard slowly extended its lead.
The difference was 24-15 at intermission.
Conrady was clearly disappointed with the quality of his team’s play, but he didn’t do much talking about it at halftime. He let his players get the message across and McCallie was a totally different team in the second half.
“I didn’t say much at the half as I let them do the talking. I got them started, but we were really disappointed in how we performed in the first half. They played much better in the second half,” Conrady concluded.
Meechie Bowens canned a 3 from the wing with 6:25 left in the third stanza to give Howard its biggest lead at 29-18 and that’s when the Blue Tornado shifted into another gear.
Enjoying a 15-3 run over the next three minutes, McCallie took its first lead at 33-32 with 3:13 left in the third when Rivers sank back-to-back 3s.
Rivers connected again from the line right before the buzzer to give the Blue Tornado a 41-39 lead with one quarter remaining.
There was one tie and three lead changes in the final eight minutes, but the fans got their money’s worth during that quarter alone as both teams really laid it on the line and refused to be denied.
Rivers sank two free throws with 17 seconds left to knot the score at 56 before Calvin James put Howard up by two with two charity tosses with 13.9 seconds left, setting the tone for Hardy’s late heroics.
Howard had the last possession and got a pretty good look, but Xavier
Fisher’s shot on a drive down the left side of the lane rolled off the rim as the final horn sounded.
Rivers had 27 points to lead McCallie. Joryam Saizonou chipped in with 13 before fouling out late while Hardy had 11.
Bowens had 19 points to lead Howard while Kerrick Thorne added 17. Dicorius Knight and James both finished with seven.
Howard enjoyed an unofficial 24-20 rebounding edge as Thorne grabbed six to lead the Hustlin’ Tigers. Knight and Fisher had four each. Hardy had five rebounds to lead McCallie while Trey Hamilton snagged four.
Howard travels to Central for its next game on Friday while McCallie will be at home again that same night to face Chattanooga Christian.
HOWARD 13 11 15 19 -- 58
McCALLIE 5 10 26 18 -- 59
HOWARD (58) – Sexton 3, Knight 7, Thorne 17, Bowens 19, Fisher 3, Wilson, Hall 2, James 7.
McCALLIE (59) – Turner, Rivers 27, Saizonou 13, Rankin, Elliott 2, Hamilton 6, Hardy 11, Craig.
3-POINT GOALS: Howard 6 (Bowens 5, Fisher); McCallie 6 (Rivers 4, Saizonou, Hardy).
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)