Frankfort Hot Dogs | Archive | January, 2009

The senior took advantage of the Hornets’ lack of size inside, scoring
a career-high 41 points and grabbing 16 rebounds as Frankfort defeated
Rossville Saturday night, 79-72.

Nearly all of Loveless’ 14
made baskets came from eight feet and in. If you looked at his shot
chart, there’d be a semi-circle with all the dots around the basket.

Loveless dedicated the game to his grandfather, who passed away Saturday.

“I got to give a lot of credit to my teammates who put me in great
scoring positions,” Loveless said. “A lot of the time I just had to
catch the ball, take my dribble and go up with it. It’s real easy to
score 40 points when your teammates get you the ball in such great
situations.”

Loveless was 14-of-25 from the field and 13-of-15
from the free-throw line to get his 41 points. After struggling against
Lebanon last week – in which he finished with 12 points – Loveless was
motivated to have a break-out game, especially against a county rival
like Rossville.

“I made sure from the beginning I attacked and
set the tone for the rest of the game and played with intensity,”
Loveless said. “This gymnasium is tough to play in. They just hit shot
after shot after shot. It’s a great win for us.”

Almost lost in
the shuffle was the performance of Rossville’s Aaron Martin. The senior
led the Hornets with 25 points on 8-of-11 shooting, including 3-of-6
from 3-point land.

“In the first half we did well getting up
and down the court and in the second half, they got an awful lot of
offensive boards,” Martin said. “You can’t run fast if they’re scoring
every time. That was the main thing.

“I made a couple stupid
plays. Missed two free throws, dribbled off my foot, took some stupid
shots … I guess I got to step up more.”

As expected, the game
came down to which team could control the tempo. The first 10 minutes
saw Rossville jump out to a 32-19 lead as they hit five 3-pointers (two
from Brian Evans and Travis Perkins and one from Martin) and pressed
Frankfort into poor decisions.

“We gave them fits with the
press early on,” Rossville coach Mike Gick said. “If we don’t get in
foul trouble early, you’re looking at a different ball game. We didn’t
see them making a lot of adjustments early and that changed the
complexity of how I had to play.”

The first quarter of the game did not sit well with Frankfort coach Jason Good.

“We did a bad job playing the way we wanted to play,” Good said. “We
did exactly we told them not to let happen. They were running up and
down the court, having a lot of fun and we finally got the game slowed
down a little bit and got the ball inside.”

But the final 22
minutes saw the Hot Dogs slow the game down into the half court – and
establishing Loveless in the post. A 15-5 run to end the first half got
the Hot Dogs within 37-34.

In the third quarter, the Hot Dogs
flexed their muscles by outscoring the Hornets, 24-15. After scoring 32
points in the first 8:50 of the game, the Hornets only tallied 20 in
the next 15:10. The Hot Dogs led 58-52 at the end of the third quarter.

“I don’t know why it took us so long to figure out they could shoot
it,” Good said. “We weren’t matching up and they’d run to the 3-point
line. They were open and I thought we did a better job after the first
quarter.”

Frankfort’s run was assisted by foul trouble, as Martin, Ben Ummel, Kendall Sadler and Tanner Hack all had two fouls early.

“We made that comeback with Martin on the bench,” Good said. “I was
worried in the second half if we were still going to able to play like
that. We didn’t let their press get us playing too fast.”

But
the Hornets stayed close for the final eight minutes, cutting
Frankfort’s lead to 71-69 on a Travis Perkins basket with 1:37 to go.
The Hornets missed a few opportunities in the fourth. A Perkins lay-up
went in and out and Martin – an 85 percent free-throw shooter – missed
two free throws with 1:49 to go.

“Those were big,” Gick said.
“When you look at it, a 3-4 point ball game and we let them double us
up on rebounds … you do all those things and you still have a chance
to win. We just had a couple breakdowns at crucial points in the game
but for the most part everybody played hard.”

Frankfort
outrebounded the Rossville, 38-22. The Hornets also had four players
foul out – Martin, Ummel, Sadler and Tyler Wright.

Kokomo (3-4), which trailed by 10 points early in the fourth quarter,
chipped away at the lead, finally catching the Hot Dogs at 53 on
Arnett’s basket with 4:13 to go in regulation.

Frankfort (4-3)
rallied to go up 59-54, but Arnett scored on a floater in the lane and
Patrick Hopkins tipped in his own miss to bring the Kats to within one
at 59-58 with 35 seconds to play. Frankfort’s Stevie Loveless, who led
all scorers with 28 points, made 1-of-2 from the line to make it 60-58
with 23 seconds left. But Arnett drove to the left side of the lane,
pump-faked a defender, and sank a bank shot to tie it at 60 with 11
seconds to go. Frankfort’s Jay Sheets was fouled a second later, but
missed both free throws and the game went into overtime.

Arnett, who scored 12 of his team-high 22 points in the fourth quarter
and overtime, twice tied the game late before his winning put-back
basket. Down 69-67 with 30 seconds to play, Arnett canned two foul
shots and then hit a drive with 10 seconds left to forge a 71-71 tie.

After a turnover by Frankfort, Arnett rebounded a miss by Colton Summers and scored the winning layup as time expired.

For Kokomo coach Brian McCauley, the win was just what the doctor ordered.

“What a huge win for our team and our program,” he said. “I’m so
pleased with the effort that the fellows put forth to find a way to win
that game. It says a lot about a team when you can find a way to win.
We dodged a couple of bullets, but we also made plays.”

For the
Hot Dogs, a 24-7 third quarter advantage allowed them to rebound from a
31-23 halftime deficit to take a 47-38 lead after three quarters. But
Frankfort let the game slip away, and coach Jason Good was not
interested in moral victories.

“I thought we played really well
in the third quarter but then we got a lead and we started playing not
to lose,” Good said. “We didn’t take care of the ball at the end. We
felt like we should win, and that’s disappointing.

“Hats off to
Kokomo. I thought they did a fantastic job of pursuing loose balls.
There were seven or eight plays in the game where we had made an
initial stop on defense and all we had to do was run down the ball. Our
guys thought it was going to go out of bounds or whatever, and Kokomo’s
guys sprinted to it and got it. That’s the difference in the game. It
gave them second chances and they usually scored on those.”

Indeed, the Kats outscored the Hot Dogs 21-9 on second chances, including Arnett’s game winner.

The other key for Kokomo was its bench strength. Despite losing
starting center Patrick Hopkins to fouls at the end of regulation, the
Kats were able to stay in the game. McCauley pointed to the play off
the bench of Cheyse Swain, Brock Barbary, D.J. Balentine and Parker
Salinas as key in the win. The quartet combined for 20 points, 14
rebounds, and five steals. Frankfort, by contrast, got just five points
and four rebounds from its reserves.

In addition to Arnett’s 22
points, the Kats got double-figure scoring from T.J. Weir with 11 and
Summers and Hopkins with 10 apiece.

Tyrone Brown led Kokomo with eight boards and had the tough assignment of guarding Loveless most of the night.