Lebanon — The Class 3A No. 3 Lebanon Tigers entered Thursday’s match-up with Zionsville looking to send their seniors out with a win and end a six-game losing skid to the Eagles.
It wasn’t meant to be. Zionsville made 7-of-8 free throws in the fourth quarter and topped the Tigers 71-63.
“That was a great win,” Zionsville head coach Shaun Busick said. “That was our highest quality win of the year. I honestly think they are a top-20 team in the state and I think they will learn a little bit from this loss and they are going to make a state tournament run.”
Lebanon head coach Albert Hendrix said that his team will learn from the loss.
“It is a good learning experience,” he said. “(Zionsville) is a good 4A school. I think the first half is where we really lost the game. I know we were ahead 38-34, but we gave up 13 offensive rebounds for 13 points. And if you take a 12-15 point lead into the second half, we can do some different things. Zionsville came out in the second half and played a good half of basketball. The good news is we didn’t quit. There were times down the stretch that they tried to deliver a knockout punch when they had the opportunity, and we were right back at them.”
After being tied at 19 after a quarter, Lebanon tried to pull away from the Eagles, scoring the first 10 points of the second quarter to take a 29-19 lead with 4:11 remaining before the break.
Zionsville came back with an 8-2 run, getting two 3-pointers from Michael Sollman, and trailed by just four at the half when Dalton Judd got a putback with two seconds left.
“We had to quit giving up so many baskets inside,” Busick said of the second quarter. “They kept penetrating into the paint every time and we didn’t do a good job of helping off. I knew we would be able to score a little bit, but the question was could we get stops? Because they are a powerful offensive team.”
It was Zionsville who came out the aggressor in the third quarter, scoring the first nine points of the frame to take a 43-38 lead. A 3-pointer by Caleb Brannon and two free throws by Cord Barricklow tied the game with 3:06 left in the third quarter, but back-to-back baskets by Boyd Smith and Andrew Dakich gave Zionsville a four-point lead they would not relinquish.
For more of this story, read Friday’s Lebanon Reporter
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