MADISON — Just about anyone watching Tuesday night’s game at Madison could’ve guessed whom Olpe would give the ball to with 7.1 seconds left in a tied game.
Madison knew Bradley Argabright, Olpe’s talented senior guard, was the Eagles’ best bet to go baseline to baseline and make a game-winning play. The Bulldogs weren’t born yesterday; they knew Argabright was getting the ball.
They still couldn’t stop him.
Argabright answered a game-tying 3-pointer by Kole Schankie with a 14-foot buzzer-beating jumper from the left side, giving Olpe a dramatic 55-53 victory over the Bulldogs. Argabright drove the court, got free with a spin and had enough daylight to square up and softly toss the game-winner home.
“I thought about taking it all the way in, and I saw (Kale) Schankie sitting there, and I thought he might take a charge, because he likes to do that,” Argabright said. “So I decided just to pull it up and hit the shot.”
The game-winner nullified a remarkable comeback by Madison (3-2), which trailed 49-39 after Olpe’s Colby Nuessen hit a pair of free throws with three minutes to play. Three-pointers by Reece Childers and Zach Nowell brought Madison back within 49-46 with less than a minute-and-a-half to go. The Bulldogs were within 52-50 when Childers fouled Austin Bass, sending him to the line with 17.9 seconds left.
Bass — who had a huge game inside for the Eagles, leading them with 19 points and 11 rebounds — made the first free throw, then missed the second. Kole Schankie grabbed the rebound on the baseline, then kept it all the way into the left corner. He launched an off-balance 3-point shot from there, nailing it and pumping his fist as the Madison portion of the crowd exploded.
“And once we tied it up,” Madison coach Alan Brown said, “it was, ‘OK, now of course the ball is gonna go in Argabright’s hands.’ And we figured just play good, solid man-to-man defense, and what can you say? I think he’s one of the best players in our league, if not the area.”
Argabright had had an off night shooting the ball — he finished 5-of-14 with 12 points — but that wasn’t going to deter him from being the go-to guy.
“I knew coming in that that’s what I’m here for, to make big shots and be a team leader,” he said. “And I knew I’ve just gotta keep shooting, hope I hit a rhythm.”
Madison hung with the Eagles throughout, as the teams forged ties on each other and traded lead changes up until Olpe appeared to be pulling away in the opening minutes of the fourth. The Bulldogs trailed by just two at halftime and even had the lead late in the third quarter after Henry Ott buried a deep 3-pointer from the left side to break a 28-28 tie.
But Olpe (2-0), aided by two jumpers by Bass and another by Argabright just before the end of the third, busted off an 8-0 run to lead 36-31 entering the fourth.
“And that’s a typical Olpe-Madison (game), that’s just the way it is,” Olpe coach Chris Schmidt said. “I don’t think we did a bad job on offense; we missed some free throws that could have stretched it. But they did a good job running and getting open looks.”
Ethan Hall added nine points for Olpe, which is ranked third in Class 2A. Henry Ott led Madison with 14, nailing four 3-pointers. Kale Schankie had 11 points and Kole Schankie had 10.
Tuesday at Madison
Olpe 10 13 13 19 — 55
Madison 7 14 10 22 — 53
Olpe (2-0) — Nuessen 6, Argabright 12, Redeker 6, Hall 9, Bass 19, Dreier 3.
Madison (3-2) — Kole Schankie 10, Kale Schankie 11, Childers 8, Ott 14, Nowell 8, Thomsen 2.
Olpe girls 59,
Madison 29
In a matchup of top-five teams in Class 2A, top-ranked Olpe turned a garden-variety ugly win into a blowout with a 22-point fourth quarter. Kendyl McDougald led the Eagles with 15 points.
With representatives from Creighton, Iowa State and Wichita State on hand to scout Kathryn Flott, the Olpe junior post found it tough to post up inside against Madison’s zone defense. So she adjusted by displaying a little of her perimeter game, scoring eight of her 14 points on midrange jumpers.
Katelyn Henderson also had 14, including 12 in the second half, and did much of the cleanup work on the glass.
“What she does isn’t always real pretty, but it’s effective,” Olpe coach Jesse Nelson said. “And she’s just always around there and gets a lot of things done.”
Fourth-ranked Madison got the opening points of the game on a Brittany Shaklee 3-pointer, then went the entire rest of the first quarter and more than two minutes into the second without scoring.
The Eagles, like Madison, employed a zone for much of the game, and did an effective job of containing and frustrating the Bulldog front line. Shelby Buster led the Bulldogs with 13 points, and Morgan Stout had six, all in the second half.
McDougald led Olpe in scoring despite hitting just 6 of 21 shots.
“On the night, we really didn’t shoot the ball well,” Nelson said. “The shots that we worked and got, I would’ve thought that we would’ve shot a lot better percentage. We just didn’t shoot the ball very well tonight, so we were a long time getting away from them.”
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