By Robert Morgan | Published Thursday, February 19, 2009
For one half of Friday night's district showdown against Wichita Falls Hirschi, the Decatur High School boys' basketball team had everything going its way. The Wise guys delivered a pesky defensive effort that held the first-place Huskies to just 18 first half points.
However, the wheels went flying off the upset attempt in the third quarter where Hirschi took matters into its own hands. The visitors switched their defense and the Eagles never recovered as they scored just 14 points in the second half on their way to a 49-38 loss.
After a patient first half, the Huskies went to a man-to-man defense and made Decatur pay. The change in scheme caused Decatur to turn the ball over eight times in the third period and allowed Hirschi to rally from an 11-point first-half deficit.
"I give all the credit to Hirschi. They made the switch on defense which gave them the better chance against us," said DHS coach Roger Brown. "We have had trouble all year consistently scoring, and when they did that, it really limited what we could do. Not a lot of people try to man us up, but Hirschi did and they had to."
The loss dropped Decatur into a tie for the third and final playoff spot with Iowa Park at 5-4 with one game left to play. DHS was to face Burkburnett and IPHS took on Hirschi in the final district game Tuesday night. If both Decatur and Iowa Park lose or both win, they will have a one-game playoff for the final post on Saturday in Henrietta. If either team was to pull off an upset over Burk or Hirschi, then that team would move on to the state playoffs.
The Eagles looked like a playoff team in the first half where they led nearly every minute of the way. Jarrod Morris and Cade Isham knocked down some early baskets to carry DHS to a 13-8 lead.
The defensive work of Drew Vrba, Jake Williams and Jordan Rawle helped preserve the lead the rest of the half. Along with more buckets from Isham and Morris, Decatur got its biggest lead of the night at 24-13 with 1:49 left in the first half.
Hirschi, which got a pair of slam dunks by Darius Thorton before the night was finished, finally found a little momentum in the final 90 seconds of the half. Thorton scored the final five points of the half to cut the DHS lead to six points at halftime, 24-18.
The late run was just a prelude of things to come for the Huskies thanks to senior Richard Ross. They changed up the defense and maintained the momentum in the third quarter where they outscored Decatur 18-6.
Ross scored 10 of the points for Hirschi in the third quarter which allowed the visitors to take command. An eye-poppping dunk by Thorton and a bucket by Ross gave the Huskies a 30-28 lead with 5:10 to go.
The run continued as Hirschi scored eight of the 10 points scored in the final five minutes of the third quarter to make it a 36-30 contest.
The Eagles slowed the Huskies in the fourth quarter but it was too little, too late.
"Our guys did a great job for three quarters. The first half was real good for us," Brown said. "To hold a team as good as Hirschi is to just 49 points is an accomplishment of its own."
