The Mansfield Jr High Tigers game against the Lincoln Wolves on Tuesday night left the Mansfield fans hoopin’ and hollerin’ and the Lincoln fans holding their heads asking what just happened. Well Jr Tiger, Clint Stovall, is what happened as he delivered a three-point bucket with one second left in the game leading Mansfield to high court victory.
The Jr High Tigers picked up a huge 36-33 conference win against the Wolves putting them 3-6 in total season play and 1-1 in conference. “I am super proud of our performance as we consistently scored in each frame,” expressed Coach Keith Stovall. “We were down 12-6 at the end of the first quarter but our team continued to work and slowly chipped away to be down only 18-16 at the half and down 27-26 at the end of the third quarter.”
In the fourth quarter finale with no more time outs, the Tigers were able to hold the Wolves to only six points while skating around Lincoln for the three-point victory. “I was very happy with our team’s play leading up to the win. We played solid defense forcing a bad shot and a rebound from Lincoln with 15 seconds left on the clock.”
Clint Stovall led the offensive charge with 14 points all coming from the second half of the game. He was followed by Tyler Turnipseed who netted nine points. Braxton Byers added five. Drew Elmore and Darton Hoopengarner each obtained three. And Austin Quinalty closed out the offense with two points.
“This group of young men is ahead of where we expected them to be at this point. We only returned one starter from last year’s team. After that, the rest of the team had zero experience in Jr High games. The current record is not an indication of this team’s capability. We have played six of our games in tournaments. The playing time is good for a team that lacks experience but in tournaments, you don’t get much time for preparation and this group of young men need that just as much as game experience.”
“Of those six losses, four of them we led and lost the lead late with the other two losses lopsided in the score column. We had good chances to win four of those games. Rebounding continues to be a positive for this group. Tonight we play Waldron. Waldron is an excellent team, that has virtually all starters back from last year’s really good team. We lost big to them in their tournament as we were unable to handle the relentless man pressure. If we can handle the pressure tonight this should be a really good ball game!” The “Battle of Scott County” game starts tonight with 7th grade at 4:30 p.m and Jr High to follow.
