Out of Time
Spartans make yet another comeback, fall to Manhattan, 49-47
By Michael Ashford
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Looks of helplessness spread across every face on the Emporia High boys basketball team.
The final seconds ticked off the clock, the horn sounded and the Manhattan Indians walked away with a 49-47 victory over the Spartans on Friday night.
As senior Brandon Childs put it: “The clock just didn’t stop.”
With Emporia trailing Manhattan, 49-45, the Spartans had the ball underneath their own goal after a Manhattan turnover with 7.4 seconds left in the game.
Out of a timeout — Emporia’s last of the game — senior Caydrick Bloomquist threw the ball in high to Brandon Childs, who skied over everyone else to grab the ball and shoot it in to cut the Indians’ lead to 49-47 with about 5 seconds remaining.
Then, as they had talked about during the timeout, the EHS players tried to walk away with the basketball to try and get whistled for a delay of game warning — which would have stopped the clock — but one was never called.
Instead, the game officials on the court never stopped play, allowing the time to run out to give Manhattan the two-point victory.
It caused the looks of confusion on the EHS players’ faces and shouts of frustration from the Emporia crowd, but as EHS coach Rick Bloomquist said, it didn’t matter in the end.
“That’s no excuse,” he said. “We put ourselves in that situation at the end because of how we played in the first quarter. We shouldn’t have been in that situation.”
For the second straight game, the Spartans got off to a slow start, which ultimately ended up costing them in the end.
Led by eight points from Sam Kenney, Manhattan (16-2, 9-2 Centennial League) took a 16-8 lead after the first quarter. For Emporia (10-7, 5-5), this came on the heels of Tuesday’s game in which Washburn Rural took a 22-8 lead at the end of one period.
On Friday night, EHS made just 3 of 11 shots in the opening frame while Manhattan hit 7 of 15.
“We’ve been having had a tendency to do that,” Caydrick Bloomquist said. “It’s been kind of a streak right now. It’s a team thing right now. We don’t have everybody on the same page.”
Things only got worse for the Spartans as the first half came to a close.
A Childs putback off a missed 3-pointer by Taylor Euler drew Emporia back to within six points at 22-16, and then Manhattan closed the second quarter with a 13-5 run that gave the Indians a 14-point advantage heading into the break.
“I’m really perplexed,” Coach Bloomquist said. “I’m a little bit confused as to why we started the first half as bad as we did. We just didn’t defend and we didn’t play with any intensity or desire. They got us back on our heels.”
Then, just like they did against Washburn Rural, the Spartans came roaring back in the second half thanks to a mixture of full-court and zone defenses.
It was the zone defense that seemed to fluster the Indians the most, as they continually tried to feed the ball into the post to 6-foot-9 big man Jackie Carmichael only to turn the ball over time after time. After committing just two turnovers in the first half, Manhattan gave the ball away 10 times after halftime.
“I think it (the zone) threw them off quite a bit,” Childs said. “Once we got them thinking about what they were going to do, we just jumped on them.”
Emporia made its biggest move in the third quarter. Led by the inside presence of senior Troy Pierce, who registered four blocks in the frame, the Spartans outscored the Indians 13-3 in the period to draw to within four points at 38-34 heading into the fourth quarter.
EHS opened the third quarter on an 11-0 run, and Manhattan did not score in the frame until Carmichael scored on an up-and-under move with 2 minutes to go in the period.
Emporia completed the comeback less than a minute and a half into the fourth quarter, as Euler and Childs each hit jumpers to tie the game at 38.
“I thought we played better in the second half,” Rick Bloomquist said. “We showed a little bit of character — I had a few people show some character. I will give them that, we played better in the second half.”
However, with a free throw from Alex Reed with 6:18 left, Manhattan took the lead back at 39-38, and the game never got any closer again. Over the next 5 minutes, EHS made just one shot — a jumper by Caydrick Bloomquist — and missed nine.
Manhattan seemingly did all it could to keep the Spartans in the game by missing six straight free throws at one point, with two of those missed on the front end of one-and-one opportunities, but EHS never could capitalize. Two Kenney free throws with 20 seconds left gave Manhattan a 49-45 lead, which turned out to be just enough to squeeze out the victory.
“We got steals, they missed some free throws and we made some big shots,” Childs said. “We just came up short.”
Bloomquist led all scorers with 22 points, going 7-for-22 from the field and 3-for-3 from the line. Euler was the only other Spartan in double figures with 12 points.
Emporia has a quick turnaround, as the Spartans play a make-up game against Topeka High at 6 tonight in Topeka.
Manhattan 49, Emporia 47
Friday at EHS
Manhattan 16 19 3 11 — 49
Emporia 8 13 13 13 — 4
Manhattan (16-2, 9-2) — Sam Kenney 5-13 3-3 15, Colton Rohr 1-3 1-2 4, Mac Ingmire 1-3 0-0 3, Jackie Carmichael 3-9 2-4 8, Tyler Rush 4-7 0-3 8, Bryan Larsen 5-6 0-1 10, Matt McCarthy 0-4 0-0 0, Ian Opit 0-2 0-0 0, Alex Reed 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 19-48 7-15 49.
Emporia (10-7 5-5) — Eric Reimer 0-0 0-0 0, Brandon Childs 4-6 0-0 8, Caydrick Bloomquist 7-22 3-3 22, Matt McAnarney 0-0 0-0 0, Troy Pierce 1-5 0-0 2, Taylor Euler 5-14 0-0 12, Jacob Torres 0-0 1-2 1, Greg Canales 1-4 0-0 2. Totals 18-51 4-5 47.
3-point goals — Manhattan 4-12 (Kenney 2-6, Rohr 1-2, Ingmire 1-2, Larsen 0-1, Opit 0-1), Emporia 7-19 (Bloomquist 5-13, Euler 2-6). Rebounds — Manhattan 40 (Carmichael 10), Emporia 25 (Childs, Pierce 5). Assists — Manhattan 10 (Ingmire 3), Emporia 8 (Torres 4). Turnovers — Manhattan 12, Emporia 7. Total fouls — Manhattan 12, Emporia 16.