BY JARED PORTER
A free throw by Terrell Kabala with 9.9 seconds remaining lifted the Webb City boys to a 58-57 win over Carthage on Tuesday night in Central Ozark Conference action at the Cardinal Dome.
A floater by Carthage guard Taris Jackson tied the game at 57 before an unwarranted foul on the ensuing inbounds play sent Kabala to the line for two shots. Kabala, a 6-foot senior guard, made the first of his two attempts to up his game-high scoring total to 21 points on Senior Night.
Following Kabala's miss on the second attempt, the Tigers (13-12, 4-5 COC) grabbed the rebound and transitioned down the court to set up a potential game-winning shot. But a layup attempt by Patrick Carlton was blocked by Webb City junior Mekhi Garrard as the final buzzer sounded, clinching the narrow victory for the Cardinals (13-9, 5-3).
"If you go back and look at the play, we had three guys stacked up in the lane on help side," Webb City coach Jason Horn said of his team's final defensive play. "When you're guarding the ball and have guys like they have who can get to the rim, you have to rely on those guys to be there to help you. It was a winning play, and we had a guy step up and alter the shot. I just can't say enough about that group effort to make that shot tough."
The Cardinals never trailed in the second half but saw Carthage tie the game twice in the final 4:15. The Tigers trailed by as many as seven in the final quarter before a 9-2 run pulled them even with Webb City at 53-53.
"It's another tough loss, but I told our guys afterward that at some point the ball is going to roll the right way for us in one of these," Carthage coach Nathan Morris said. "Maybe it's building to some big crescendo in the district tournament. But once again, our kids battle the entire game in an extremely high-intensity, physical game."
A free throw by Tanner Rogers gave Webb City a 57-55 advantage with less than a minute left before Jackson logged his 12th and 13th points of the night on his floater in heavy traffic.
"Then our basketball awareness kind of bit us," Morris said of Carthage's intentional foul that followed. "When we fouled, I think we thought we were still down one even though it was tied. I'm not putting this loss on that one play. It's on me because I told our kids to pick up full court so they couldn't get up the court easily. So I'll take the blame for notcommunicating as well as I should have."
Cohl Vaden had three triples for Webb City and finished with 16 points.
Jackson and Carlton led the Carthage scoring with 13 points apiece, while Joel Pugh made four 3-pointers to total 12 points.
Joplin Globe 02/26/2020 (Used by permission)