Kingston finishes off Hugo handily
Kingston center Jacob Germany caught the pass right in front of his team’s bench, took one power dribble and rose up for the hammer.
The dunk capped a big run by Kingston in the final five minutes of the Class 3A semifinals against Hugo, but it also signified a statement Kingston coaches have been harping on all season.
Finish.
“It was awesome,” Germany said.
“I just gave the fans what they wanted, I guess.”
Germany led the way for Kingston with 20 points, 16 rebounds and three blocks as his team took down Hugo 68-53, in a game that looks much more lopsided than it actually was.
With 5:35 remaining in the fourth quarter, Hugo’s G’Quavious Lennox’s fadeaway jumper tied the score at 46-46 after trailing by four points or less for the majority of the game.
From there, Kingston rode a combination of tough halfcourt defense and a scoring punch from Germany, senior guard Stoney Lowe and junior R.J. Weeks to end the game on a 22-7 run.
Lowe, who finished with 14 points, said it’s been a motto his team has preached all year to each other, after last year’s Kingston squad blew a double-digit lead to Douglass in the regional championship game and followed that by giving up a 19-point lead to Sequoyah Tahlequah in the quarterfinals of the state tournament.
“In the past we struggled to finish out games,” Lowe said. “I think in the end we just wanted it more.”
Kingston coach Taylor Wiebener said he was proud to see how much his guys learned from past mistakes.
“I think we’ve really begun to understand what that means now to finish,” Wiebener said. “We used to jump out to big leads and let them slip away. Now we are closing strong.”
Hugo was led in scoring by Lennox, the lone senior on the team, with 22 points. Junior forward Houston Greggs finished with 15 points and five rebounds.