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Cole powered
Published November 24, 2009
SARDIS CITY — The first game of Matthew Cole’s senior season produced one of those magic moments he’ll never forget.
Cole drove toward the basket and sank an 8-foot floater from the left side with three seconds remaining to lift Geraldine to a thrilling 62-60 victory over Sardis on Friday night.
It was the first time Cole has ever hit a game-winning shot.
Sardis (1-2) called a timeout with 1.6 seconds left. The Lions inbounded the ball and burned another timeout with three-tenths of a second showing.
Sean Brehm lobbed a high inbounds pass to Cody Gardner, who caught the ball in the lane and appeared to draw contact. But one of the officials waved off the shot, which ignited a celebration by the Bulldogs at center court.
“It’s a play we’ve been practicing a bunch, and it’s usually that play that we run at the end of the game,” Cole said.
“I was up at the top of the key and he (GHS coach Cale Black) told me to take it, so I took it.”
The Lions led 47-46 at the final rest stop. They went up by five points twice in the fourth quarter before the Bulldogs rallied behind Cole, who scored 10 of his 17 points in the fourth.
Cole made a steal and was fouled as he sank a layup, tying it 58-58 with 1:16 on the clock.
He missed the free throw but grabbed the rebound and put it back, giving GHS a 60-58 edge with 1:13 to play.
Gardner drove to the basket and hit a scooping layup, tying it 60-60 with 1:02 to go.
The Bulldogs drained the clock to set up Cole’s heroics.
“Matthew Cole was our starting point guard all last year, and I think now as a senior he stepped up,” said Geraldine head coach Cale Black.
“I challenged him early in the game. He’d probably made a few bad decisions and I stayed on him, but we wanted it in his hands there late.
“I debated about calling a timeout, and then at the last second I thought, ‘Well, I’ll just go with him.’ He did most of it. We had two good screens there, but he drove it on and made it.”
Black expected it to be “sloppy” because it was the Bulldogs’ first game, but that wasn’t the case.
“To have such an exciting game to come down to the wire early in the season and to pull it out, I hope we can take some momentum from it and grow up,” he said.
“I think we had some players step up. A game like this hopefully can only help us down the road.”
Sardis led 17-9 after a quarter, but Geraldine rallied in the second period behind Daniel McClendon, who came off the bench to score 14 points, including a trio of 3-pointers.
McClendon’s trey with 3:29 remaining gave the Dogs a 27-24 lead.
Sardis used an 8-0 run, including a trey by Jerryn Harris, to build a 35-31 margin.
The Lions were up 35-33 at halftime.
The officials called 35 fouls on 17 different players in the opening half as the teams combined for 55 free-throw attempts. Geraldine hit 16-of-22 while Sardis was only 18-of-33.
“Geraldine is good. That’s a future area opponent,” said Sardis head coach Tracy Cheek. “Cale’s a class act.
“We got better. This is the preseason, and the preseason ends next Saturday against Hokes Bluff. Area play starts after that.”
Sardis missed 20 free throws in the contest, much to Cheek’s dismay. Despite that fact, he commended the Lions for their effort.
“We had a couple of kids playing hurt, and Seth (Mayo) couldn’t play much tonight because he was sick,” Cheek said.
“The kids played with a lot of guts and heart, and I’m just real proud of them.
“These are the kind of games you hate to lose, but it’s like I told them a while ago — these are the kind of games in area play that we’ve got to make sure we win.
“Our kids played great on defense. We had to go 1-3-1 (zone) because we were in so much foul trouble, but they were too.
“We didn’t rebound well out of the 1-3-1 and that hurt us. We took six or seven charges, and our kids just rotated over, played hard, just battled. It will be fun to go over there (to Geraldine) December 18.”
McClendon finished with 14 points for Geraldine. Tyler Malone scored 10, both Ty Rooks and Clint Willoughby nine and Tylar Johnson three.
Gardner’s 17 points led four Lions in double figures. He also had eight rebounds and eight assists.
Brehm netted 11 of his 14 points in the second half. Brandon Walter scored 11 and Aaron Champion 10.
Brehm’s 13 rebounds gave him a double-double.
Jeremy East contributed five points and Harris three for the Lions.
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