Hurricane back to winning ways
is back.
That was the primary message Hurricane head coach Wes Swift had after his team won its 14th state title.
“The last couple of years we haven’t finished the way we like to Jonesboro,” he said. “And I don’t mean we have to be in a state championship game every year, but we want to, we want to put up a fight; we want to be playing our best and at the end of the year. And we kind of challenge these guys to really hold themselves accountable, to hold their underclassmen accountable. And we’re just a lot tougher team this year than we’ve been probably the last couple of years.”
That was obvious in the final eight minutes of Saturday’s Class 5A boys state basketball final at Bank OZK Arena.
Maumelle (20-6) outscored the Hurricane 22-8 in the third quarter to all but eliminate a
16-point halftime deficit, pulling within 45-43 at the end of the quarter. Jonesboro (24-3) responded by making the first two buckets of the fourth quarter for a 49-43 lead with 1:52 off the clock.
Maumelle junior Riley Wade converted a 3-point play to cut the spread to 3 before the teams traded a bucket each. Kelvin McBride, who ended up with the game’s Most Valuable Player award, hit a 28-foot shot to give the Hurricane a 54-48 lead with 4:17 to go.
The Hurricane’s lead hovered around 3 points until a jumpshot in the paint by Nico Davillier cut the spread down to 1. Jonesboro senior Bradley Richardson and Maumelle senior Darvis Raspberry hit one free throw each to keep the spread even before Jonesboro junior Jesse Washington hit one of two with 5 seconds remaining for a 58-56 lead.
Maumelle got the ball across the timeline, and head coach Michael Shook called a timeout with 2.0 seconds left to draw up a play that he hoped would win the first state title for the Hornets.
“We wanted to have multiple options because we didn’t, you know, we didn’t know what to expect — defensively,” Shook said. “Carl (Daughtery) was an option as well as Josh (Denton), and we had even talked about where Darvis was setting the screen on the baseline for Carl coming to turn and seal. With it being a 2-point game, you know, we would have been okay with a post feed to try to score quick
and take it to overtime. I told him to throw it to the open man.”
Wade threw the ball in to Denton, and it went back to Wade behind the arc. His shot at the buzzer went wide, sending Jonesboro into fits of cheering.
“Being only up 2, it kind of changes a little bit, and with their interior play, we were very concerned about that,” Swift said. “I don’t know if you noticed, but we went zone right there. We were ready to track. If they had thrown it straight to the paint, we were obviously going to go to track, I mean real quick. … What shocked me was when 11 got it, I thought he’s gonna go one dribble and pull up, but when he handed it back off, that kind of threw me. I didn’t think they would have time to do that, but he got it off. But I think we contested it well.”
Jonesboro got off to a strong start behind sophomore Isaac Harrell, who hit back-to-back treys to help get the team off to a 7-0 start en route to a 17-6 lead going into the second frame. Maumelle started to chip away at the deficit early with an 8-4 spurt, but Jonesboro continued to control the game offensively, pushing out to a 37-21 lead at intermission.
Junior Jesse Washington led Jonesboro with 16 points, three rebounds, an assist and a steal, classmate Kavon Pointer added 10 with seven boards, sophomore Devarius Montgomery put up 9 points with seven rebounds and a steal, and McBride finished with 8 points, two assists and two steals.
Wade and Denton both ended up with 12 points on the night. Wade had three rebounds, two blocks and a steal, and Denton had two boards, three assists and a steal. Rasberry finished with 11 points, six rebounds, an assist and a steal.