Bishop Grimes 57,
Hannibal 53
Made a trip to the Cobra Pit. Wasn’t sure what to expect
from this one. Got a close game, although I feel like it shouldn’t have been as
close as it turned out. Chalk that up to a Grimes lineup filling in a lot of
missing pieces… or a Hannibal team that doesn’t give up.
Got there midway through the 1st, with Grimes
holding a 6-4 edge. Hannibal (the team that continuously knocked me out of
sectionals in high school in their State Final 4 days, by the way) didn’t do
much of anything for a while upon my arrival. A couple buckets by Joe Arrigo
& a pair more from Tommy Steinberg put the Cobras up 15-4 after 1, looking
like they might cruise. Hannibal started to come around in the 2nd,
but not fully. They had good possessions offensively and defensively, but
weren’t able to string multiple ones together to forge any kind of a run.
Neither team scored more than 5 consecutive points in the quarter (each did
once), but Grimes finished the quarter strong, outscoring Hannibal 9-3 in the
last 3:44 of the half to take a 32-18 lead into the locker room. Steinberg led
the way with 10 at the time.
Bishop Grimes started the 2nd half off strong,
and kept it up for most of the 3rd quarter as they pulled away from
the visitors. Contributions from 4 different Cobras on the offensive end mixed
with a strong defensive effort helped extend the lead to 44-25 with 1:17 left
in the 3rd. This is when
things started to change. Point guard Billy Skipper had a nice little
possession where he made a Grimes defender look like he was doing the Cat Daddy
80 feet away from the basket, then proceeded to knock down a trey a few seconds
later, and big man Josh McCraith hit a 3 from the corner just before the
buzzer, and Hannibal was back down 13 after 3. It took Grimes nearly all the 1st
half of the 4th quarter to get on the board, with Steinberg getting
one to go at the 4:16 mark, but the damage had been done, and it was a game.
Hannibal scored the 1st 7 of the quarter and brought it down to
single digits, where it stayed the rest of the way. Steinberg & Hannibal
continued to trade buckets over the next couple minutes, but his two 2s were
traded with Billy Skipper & Trevor Alton 3s, which brought the Hannibal
deficit down to 4 at 48-44. A pair of Grimes buckets, including one from Akol
Ater that ended a stretch of 8:02 where Steinberg was the only person to score
for them, brought them back up 8 with under 2 minutes to play. Hannibal came
right back, scoring 6 unanswered in 48 seconds to get it to 2, the closest it had
been since right when I arrived. Trevor Alton split a pair of free throws, hit
a 3, and McCraith had a bucket with :38.3 left to get it to that 52-50 score.
Poor free throw shooting nearly did Grimes in, as they missed all 3 front ends
of their 1 & 1 opportunities, but Hannibal returned the favor. Alton missed
a free throw, and McCraith had 2 chances to connect on a 3 point play
opportunity after the layup due to a lane violation, but missed both. AC Ater
finally broke the Grimes slump, hitting the 2nd free throw in a
double bonus situation with :31.4 left. On the ensuing Hannibal possession,
Akol Ater poked the ball away from the ballhandler in the backcourt, and
Steinberg dove on it before it went out of bounds. He got the timeout before he
went out, securing possession for Grimes. Hannibal resorted to the foul game,
and Johnny Wike & Steinberg each hit a pair to extend their lead to 57-50
in the last few seconds. Skipper hit another 3 in the final seconds to make the
final score.
Grimes had the game in nearly total control, but they
fell asleep at the wheel and Hannibal nearly stole one in the Cobra Pit. Almost
wins don’t count though, and the Cobras remained undefeated at 3-0 with the
win. Tommy Steinberg led all scorers with 22 points and numerous big plays for
the winners. He had 6 rebounds in the 4th quarter alone, and for 8
minutes in the 2nd half, he literally was Grimes’ offense. On
Hannibal’s end, Billy Skipper & Trevor Alton scored 18 apiece. Alton had 10
of his 18 in the 4th, and Skipper added 8 of his in the last 8
minutes. Those two combined had 18 of Hannibal’s 22 4th quarter
points in their furious comeback attempt.
No comments:
Post a Comment