Frontier boys rally to defeat St. Marys, 53-52
Daugherty’s double-double lifts Cougars to victory over Devils
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NEW MATAMORAS -- After a tough loss the night before to Trinity Christian in an OVAC semifinal and then falling behind by 10 points in the opening quarter of Wednesday night's battle against cross river rival St. Marys things were looking a bit bleak for Frontier High School.
The Cougars clawed their way back into the game in the second quarter and then scored the first 12 points of the second half as they rallied to down the visiting Blue Devils 53-52 in a thriller.
Cougar junior Kyle Daugherty led the way with 19 points and 15 rebounds as Frontier downed its rivals for the third consecutive year.
"We got down 10 early and I thought we were going to get blown out," said Frontier head coach Roger Kirkpatrick. "We made some key baskets and kept fighting hard and it turned into a really good team win."
St. Marys opened the game with a pair of field goals before Frontier got triples by Breckin Hoff and Corby Curtis to take a 6-4 lead.
The Devils forced Frontier into seven first-quarter turnovers as they went on a 14-2 run to increase their lead to double figures at 18-8.
Frontier got a pair of 3-pointers from Curtis early in the second quarter and Kirkpatrick felt those may well have been the biggest points of the game for his team.
"Corby hit some key shots that really kept us in the game," said Kirkpatrick. "If he doesn't make those it could very well have been a blowout."
St. Marys managed to push its lead back to five at the intermission but could not stop the revitalized Cougars, who came out clicking on all cylinders in the second half.
Logan Brookover got things going with a field goal that kicked off a 12-0 Cougar run, which turned the five-point deficit into a seven-point lead.
Daugherty scored nine of those points with a pair of field goals coming on assists from Brookover as they executed the high-low game to perfection.
"Most games I screen for Logan and we are able do the back door," said Daugherty. "They (St. Marys) came in here ready to beat us and we had to play our hearts out to get this win."
Richard Dornon came up with back-to-back field goals for St. Marys to cool down the Cougars but the combination of Brookover to Daugherty worked once again as the Vegas blue and gold maintained a five-point lead at the end of three quarters.
Dornon scored the first four points of the final period to trim the lead back to one but buckets by freshman Tanner Bills and Daugherty and a pair of free throws by Brookover quickly pushed the lead back to seven.
Frontier made just 10 of 17 free throws on the night and several of those misses allowed the Devils to stay within striking distance.
A 3-pointer by Carson Miller pulled the Devils to within a point before another Dornon field goal pushed them back in front 50-49 with less than two minutes to play.
Curtis and Hoff each made one-of-two at the charity stripe to put the Cougars back in front but a layup by Peyton Auxier enabled the Blue Devils to regain the lead by a point with less than 60 seconds left on the clock.
Hoff drove strong to the basket but his floater in the lane bounced off the rim where Brookover grabbed the rebound and scored to give Frontier a one-point lead with 20 seconds to play.
St. Marys managed to get more than one attempt at a game-winner as after Auxier's attempt at a game-winning triple was off the mark the Devils grabbed a pair of rebounds but were unable to get the ball to go in the hole as the buzzer sounded.
"We got a couple of looks at it there at the end because our guys busted it and scrapped to get that ball, " said St. Marys head coach Mark Barnhart. "Our kids played hard all night long we've just got to make some better basketball decisions."
Brookover added 13 points, eight rebounds and six assists while Curtis reached double figures with 10 points for the Cougars.
St. Marys was led by Dornon with 13 points while Isaak Mooney chipped in with 12.
"We were able to cut it five at the half and then had a great third quarter and did a great job defensively and then the fourth quarter was a dog-fight," said Kirkpatrick, whose team improved to 9-11 with the win. "You can throw out the records when these two teams play because we battle."
St. Marys. which slipped to 12-7 with the loss, will be right back in action tonight at Roane County while the Cougars have more than a week off before visiting Beallsville next Friday.