'Streaky' pulls through for Braves

Monday, January 21, 2002

Scott Central upsets Oran for Scott-Miss title

DELTA -- The knock on Scott Central's Terrance Williams has been his inconsistency from game to game. But the senior came through in crunch time Friday night, leading the Braves to a 69-68 overtime win against Oran.

Williams can be unguardable at times, carrying the Braves' offense. But cold streaks and poor decisions have haunted him this year.

Basically Squeaky, as called by his teammates and fans, could be renamed Streaky.

In Friday's championship game of the Scott-Mississippi Conference Tournament, both versions showed up.

With 30 seconds left in overtime, the senior guard missed back-to-back free throws with the Braves holding a shaky one-point lead. But he later redeemed himself, hitting two foul shots with nine seconds left. He then partially blocked a Ryne Wood 3-point attempt at the buzzer to seal the win for Scott Central.

"Squeaky played okay," said Scott Central coach Steve Wells. "He tried to do a little to much with the ball at times, but he was geared up trying to make plays. You can't fault him for that. He hit a couple of big foul shots for us there at the end."

Williams' late-game heroics led the Braves to their most impressive win of the year. Oran was the top seed in the tournament and ranked No. 8 in Missouri 1A.

"It's a huge win for us," said Wells. "It throws the (1A District 2) seed meeting into a quandary. We hung tough and made some plays coming down the stretch."

Scott Central opened the game with seven unanswered points and never relinquished the lead for the first three quarters. Heading into the final period, the Braves had built a commanding 51-37 lead, only to see Oran put together an impressive comeback to force overtime at 61-61.

"I'm proud of the way we worked hard and came back, but at the same time, we didn't work for the first three quarters," said Oran coach Mitch Wood. "If you don't work for three quarters in a ballgame, you're not going to get much out of it. We plum stunk the gym up for three quarters -- there's no ifs, ands or buts about it."

Nathan Seyer, Joey Bickings and Patrick Friga led Oran's comeback in the fourth quarter, combining for 21 points. In the overtime period, Friga hit two free throws to give the Eagles a 68-67 lead with 14.7 seconds left. Williams then reclaimed the lead with his two foul shots to give Scott Central the win.

"(Scott Central) is a good ballclub," said Wood. "I'm not surprised they did the things they did, but we had a lot to do with it. They were hitting shots with people 10-feet off of them. We just decided we weren't going to guard tonight."

Seyer led all scorers with 29 points. Friga finished with 11 for Oran and Bickings contributed 10. Standout Ryne Wood, who scored nine, will undergo surgery for a broken nose and is expected to miss two weeks of action.

Blue-collar postman Chris Johnson paced the Braves with 16, followed by Desmen Johnson with 15 and Williams with 12. "We were favored to win and we should've won this tournament," said Coach Wood. "We've had three chances for trophies this year, and we've let them all slip away. There's one more trophy to go after at the end of the year, and we've got to decide if we want to let it slip away or we want to go after it. We're capable, but we've got to practice like it, then come out in games and play like it."

Scott Central (10-6) will travel to East Prairie on Tuesday, while Oran (11-4) travels to Leopold.

Kelly won the Scott-Miss Junior Varsity championship game over Scott City, 57-44. Lee Ziegler dominated, scoring a game-high 19 points and Josh Jones finished with 11.

Mark Dannenmueller led all Scott City scorers with 11 points.

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