LH players recount experiences in 5OT game
Seeing a high school basketball game go to five overtimes is something that happens rarely, although two Garland County teams came out on top in their respective 52-minute marathons.
Jessieville defeated Dover 72-67 on Jan. 7 in its marathon game, but Lake Hamilton defeated Little Rock Parkview 87-81 in the second round of the Class 5A state tournament last Friday to advance to the semifinal round to face eventual state runner-up Marion.
Going into the game, the Wolves knew that it was going to be a battle.
“They’re gonna be athletic, skilled, pretty well coached,” said senior Chase Jessup. “They had some good offensive sets we had to guard. Other than that, though, we had the rebound, and if we did those few things — guard well rebounded and shot the ball well — we knew we would come out with the win.”
Junior Zac Pennington said that part of what helped the team get past Parkview was their mental state.
“Last year when we played them, we didn’t really think we had a chance,” he said. “We were just trying to keep it close. But all year long, we knew — we were both ranked in the top four in our class all year. So it was gonna be tough, but in our minds, we thought we were better. So everyone’s saying it was an upset afterwards — we didn’t agree with that. We expected to beat them. It wasn’t a surprise to us.”
Despite the positive thinking, there were times that the players felt that the tables had turned.
“Pretty much every overtime there was a point where I thought we were gonna lose,” Zac Pennington said. “Every time they made a three to tie it up.”
Head coach Scotty Pennington said that although Charter Harris “got dunked on,” he took it in stride.
“One thing that made me proud of Charter is Charter posted it on social media and says, ‘I may have got dunked on, but I still got the W.’ And I love that. He was making sure everybody knew that might have happened, but we still got the win,” he said.
Demetrius Sharp, who transferred to Lake Hamilton this year, finished with a game-high 35 points in the win, but he had no clue his total was as high as it was during the game.
“Not at all,” he said. “I knew Parkview was gonna be one of the better defending teams that we was gonna play against all year, and I don’t even know. I really don’t know how I did it, but I did shoot 20-plus free throws, so that helped a lot. And I only missed one.”
Jessup said that as the game went on, his focus went from being out of breath to making sure his legs would continue to hold up.
“Honestly, after a while — I don’t know about the rest of the guys — I wasn’t really out of breath anymore,” he said. “I was just more worried about my legs physically cramping up and I couldn’t walk anymore. But luckily, we found a way to keep going. Staying hydrated on the sideline. I think I was stealing coach’s drink a little bit here and there.”
Less than 18 hours after leaving the court, the Wolves were back on it to face Marion in the semifinal round. Despite being exhausted from the previous day’s game, they all still had a positive outlook going into the game.
“We went into it like we were going to win,” Jessup recalled. “You know? I don’t think I heard one person saying, ‘I don’t know if we can get this done.’ We
all thought that we could get done, and we all knew we were going to get it done. It just didn’t work out that way. So I mean all of us played extremely hard that game. It’s just shots fell for them and shots didn’t fall for us. That’s kind of what it comes down to.”
Harris said that as the game was coming to a close, the team started to feel the effects of the previous night.
“I think the game before definitely had a small factor into … our bodies giving out towards the end of the game and realizing that we just weren’t 100%. But at least we didn’t give up,” he said.
“I don’t think any of us actually felt physically the effects of the game before because our adrenaline was so high,” Zac Pennington said. “But for a team that shoots as well as we do to not have a great shooting game in a moment like that, I think definitely that had a factor in on that, even if we didn’t feel that way. Our bodies weren’t the same that they normally are.”