Heritage boys rally late against Gilmer to earn state playoff berth
For the first 26 minutes last Tuesday night, Heritage’s offense struggled in just about every way an offense can struggle on a basketball court.
Foul trouble and turnovers, compounded by the fact that the Heritage basket seemed to have an airtight lid on it, had the Generals staring a season-ending defeat at the hands of the Gilmer Bobcats squarely in the face.
What happened next won’t soon be forgotten by any Heritage fan who attended the game in person.
Trailing 37-28, fourthseeded Heritage nearly doubled their score in the final six minutes of the contest to post a 55-44 victory over the fifth-seeded Bobcats to earn a berth in the Region 6-AAAA semifinals and lock up a Class AAAA state playoff berth.
“It’s big,” Heritage head coach Kevin Terry said of punching the ticket to state.
“We’ve been a team of ‘almost’ all year. We’ve almost been good. We’ve almost beaten some good teams, but we just haven’t been able to put it all together yet. But we’ve been talking all year about (the region tournament) and trying to put things together to make a run and do something special. I still believe that this can be a special team.”
The Bobcats’ height and perimeter defense was doing everything it could through the first three quarters to stymie the Heritage offense. The opened the game on a 7-0 run and led 9-5 after one quarter. The Generals were able to chip away at the deficit in the second quarter and managed to pull within two points of the lead, 24-22, at halftime, but the third quarter was nearly a complete disaster for the Navy-and-red.
Gilmer scored 11 unanswered points to start the second half and held Heritage without a single point for more than seven minutes as they built a 35-22 lead. However, Cooper Terry would finally get Heritage back on the board by scoring the last five points of the quarter, all coming in the final 40 seconds.
A 3-pointer by the Bobcats in the early stages of the fourth would put them up nine, but Heritage freshman Kaden Swope came off the bench to hit a 3-pointer, slicing the gap down to 37-31 as the clock ticked under six minutes to play.
After a Gilmer miss, Mitchell Kennedy made a move on the baseline for a bucket and Swope, playing tight defense on the press, stole the ball in the backcourt and converted and, suddenly, the Bobcats’ onetime, seemingly-comfortable, double-digit lead was down to just two with 4:50 remaining.
Gilmer briefly pushed its lead back out to six, but Terry would hit a big 3-pointer at the four-minute mark, which was followed by a Cade Collins basket just 36 seconds later. Swope then came up with another backcourt steal on the press and layed the ball off the glass to give the Generals their first lead of the night, 4241, with 3:12 to play.
Cade Carter hit a free throw for the Bobcats to tie the game with 2:57 to go, but Terry would hit backto-back shots on Heritage’s next two possessions, including another huge trey with 2:05 left. He also hit both ends of a one-and-one with 1:25 to go and again with 47 seconds left after the stunned Bobcats were forced to start fouling late.
Caden Snyder drained two free throws with 38 seconds to go, while Swope and Terry each added one more free toss down the stretch as the Generals engineered a 24-point turnaround over the final 10 minutes of the contest.
Terry scored 13 of his game-high 21 points in the fourth quarter, while Swope scored all eight of his points in the final period. Kennedy and Kobe Mcalister battled foul trouble, but finished with six points apiece. Collins and Cade Kiniry had four points each, while Snyder and Palmer each dropped in three.
As a team, Heritage went 11 of 15 at the free throw line, including 8 of 11 in the final 1:25.
GENERALS,