GREAT BEND — In substate play, even a well-below-.500 team can get its heart broken.
The Emporia High boys ended their season on Wednesday with a loss that, in the end, was about as frustrating as any of the 14 others they suffered during a dismal 2009-10 campaign. After the Spartans led Great Bend most of the way, Austin Zamarripa’s traditional three-point play underneath with nine seconds remaining gave the third-seeded Panthers a one-point lead, and Paul Naab’s 17-footer for the win was no good, ending Emporia’s season with a 39-38 first round loss.
Coming into substate play as an underdog sixth seed didn’t make the loss hurt any less for EHS (6-15), which completed its first losing season since 2002-03.
“We had them the whole game,” said a red-eyed Bryce Childs. “Had them on their heels the whole game and just couldn’t bring it together at the end.”
The Spartans can point to a number of familiar reasons why they couldn’t close out the win and advance to Friday’s substate final. Most glaringly, EHS once again struggled at the free throw line, finishing 5-of-15 there. Emporia coach Rick Bloomquist was upset about unforced turnovers and the Spartans’ inability to secure several defensive rebound opportunities in the final minute, when they were up by two points. Grabbing any of those boards could have helped change the outcome.
The loss was Emporia’s second straight by one point following last Friday’s home overtime defeat to Manhattan.
“We had a shorter span of breakdowns, and basically, the biggest breakdown was the last 30 seconds, 40 seconds, when we... didn’t secure the ball and didn’t play to win,” Bloomquist said. “My team just doesn’t know how — and I can say (this) candidly, not being negative, but we don’t know how to win in the end.”
The 6-foot-3 Zamarripa had been rejected underneath by Emporia’s Greg Canales with about 45 seconds to go. But when Zamarripa got it on the block against the 6-foot-6 Canales again with around 11 seconds left, he wasn’t shy about going back up, and he drew contact. The whistle blew as Zamarripa’s shot went up and banked in to tie the game with 9 seconds remaining, sending the modest Great Bend crowd into a frenzy. He added the free throw to give the Panthers their first lead since 6:14 remained in the game.
The Spartans called timeout and came out in a 1-4 set, with freshman point guard Jackson Perez looking to either drive for the win or kick it to another shooter. He drove into traffic on the right side, looked back out and saw Naab cutting toward the top of the key on the left side. Naab’s shot missed, and Zamarripa rebounded before time expired.
“I was supposed to penetrate, and just create something for somebody,” Perez said. “And I think we got a pretty decent shot. If anything was open — I didn’t see anything open, so I found the open guy, and he got a pretty decent shot, but it just didn’t go down.”
Using zone and amoeba defenses to depress the Panther offense, Emporia led by seven at one point in the first half and stayed in front for most of the second half. Great Bend got the game tied at 36 on a 3-pointer by Jordan Basye with a litte less than three minutes left, but Perez’s midrange jumper got the shooter’s roll to give Emporia a two-point lead with just more than a minute to go.
Childs led EHS with nine points in his final high school game, but he struggled more than any Spartan from the line, hitting just 2-of-8 foul shots. Perez had seven points, and Canales, the Spartans’ other senior regular, scored six.
For the complete story see the Gazette print edition or the online print edition at http://www.emporiagazette.com/pdf. To subscribe to the print edition or the online print edition go to http://www.emporiagazette.com/subscribe.