Cards fall short in 2A final

South Knox's Cody Hendershot (with basketball) tries to finds himself trapped between Bloomfield's Ryan O'Neall (left) and Drake Vandeventer during Saturday night's Class 2A Sectional final at Bicknell. The Spartans defeated the Cardinals 50-45 to advance to Saturday's regional at Southridge. (By Donna Curl/Greene County Daily World). [Order this photo]

BICKNELL -- Saturday's Indiana High School Athletic Association Class 2A North Knox Sectional title game came down to the final moments thanks to a furious Bloomfield comeback.

The Cardinals outscored South Knox 25-17 in the final quarter to all but erase a double-digit lead that lingered from the start of the second half, but it proved to be too little too late as the Spartans prevailed 50-45.

"I told the boys that I've seen a lot of ball games and a lot of Bloomfield games," Cardinals (7-16) coach John Bucher said. "After all of those games that I've seen, that was one of the greatest efforts in a quarter or a quarter and a half that I've seen."

Bloomfield's valiant comeback effort saw them revitalize themselves and chew a 17-point South Knox lead down to just a single point over a span of just under six minutes.

"We were just in a big hole and our boys did their best to execute the game plan and that type of thing," Bucher said. "They just played their guts out -- and as long as you do that, you can walk away with your head up.

"It doesn't ease the pain, but you know that you've left everything out on the floor -- and everybody in this gym knows that Bloomfield did that."

The Spartans built their margin to 40-23 with 5 minutes and 54 seconds remaining in the contest.

Thanks mostly to Bloomfield's struggles shooting the ball from the field. Over the first three quarters they had been limited to single digits -- nine in the first quarter, four in the second and seven in the third -- which left them facing a 12-9 gap after one quarter, 22-13 at the intermission and 33-20 at the third stop.

"I thought we had good shots and good looks," Bucher said. "They were just shots we didn't make and that happens. It's just part of the game."

It would also be the most comfortable they would be the rest of the evening as the Cardinals returned to the form that led them to the same class 2A sectional title a year ago.

"I'll say this," Bucher said. "Our kids almost pulled off one that would have been great. And I'll give a lot of credit to coach (Joe) Patton and his team. They did a nice job."

The comeback began innocently enough when BHS senior Holden Hamm was fouled on a 3-pointer and connected on the extra toss. That made it 40-27 with 5:27 to play.

Less than a minute later, following an exchange of missed trey's, the Cardinals got buckets from senior Andy Cochrane on back-to-possessions. His second was most significant hitting from behind the arc to cut the lead to a dozen points.

The 6-1 forward countered buckets from South Knox senior and IUPUI recruit Mitch Patton on consecutive possessions.

Next time around it was BHS's Ryan O'Neall who hit the bottom of the bucket. It also trigged a chain of events that led to the evaporation of nine of the Spartans 10-point lead.

O'Neall's free throw came at the 3:45 mark and started a BHS scoring streak that lasted for the next five possessions and the next 2 minutes and 21 seconds.

During that time the Cardinals outscored South Knox 11-2, took advantage of three straight turnovers and benefited from a pair of missed free throws. It helped whittle the score down to 46-45 -- the trouble for Bloomfield was it would be the last points they would score.

South Knox rebounded just enough to hold onto the slim lead thanks to an inability to get a shot to fall by the Cardinals.

Over the final minute and 24 seconds of the game they were 0 for 6 from the field and the Spartans went 4 for 6 from the charity stripe.

"We put together what we felt like would give us our best effort," Bucher said about the short prep time between Friday's semifinal win over Eastern Greene and Saturday's title tilt. "When that didn't work, we had to resort to a back up. We threw everything out the window and just played."

Cochrane matched the highly-touted Patton point-for-point as they each racked up a game-high 21 points.

Patton held the edge, however, in rebounding hauling in 20.

"Patton presented us with some problems obviously," Bucher said. "Our biggest guy guarding him was 5-8."

Hamm finished his final game in a Cardinal uniform with 10 while O'Neall finished with six, Bryce Lindsey with four, Drake Vandeventer and Payton Karl with two each.

"I couldn't be more pleased with the effort our boys game tonight and all season," Bucher said. "They're a great group of boys."

Class 2A

North Knox Sectional

Championship game

Saturday

BLOOMFIELD (45) -- Holden Hamm 3-10 2-3 10, Ryan O'Neall 3-5 0-0 6, Bryce Lindsey 2-8 0-0 4, Andy Cochrane 8-23 2-3 21, Drake Vandeventer 1-11 0-0 2, Payton Karl 1-1 0-0 2. Totals 18-58 4-6 45.

SOUTH KNOX (50) -- Justin Marchino 2-3 1-6 5, Levi Blubaum 0-3 1-3 1, Jake Owens 1-6 0-0 2, Cody Hendershot 6-10 4-4 18, Mitch Patton 9-11 3-3 21, Garrett Wilson 0-0 1-2 1, Chase Marchino 1-1 0-0 2, Trey Welton 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 19-35 10-18 50.

Bloomfield 9 4 7 25 -- 45

South Knox 12 10 11 17 -- 50

3-point shooting -- Bloomfield 5-26 (Cochrane 3-9, Hamm 2-6, Lindsey 0-2, Vandeventer 0-9), South Knox 2-8 (Hendershot 2-4, Blubaum 0-3, Patton 0-1). Total fouls -- Bloomfield 17, South Knox 10. Fouled out -- none. Rebounds -- Bloomfield 22 (Lindsey 5, Cochrane 5), South Knox 33 (Patton 20). Steals -- Bloomfield 5 (Karl 2), South Knox 1 (Owens). Blocked shots -- Bloomfield 0, South Knox 4 (Patton 4). Turnovers -- Bloomfield 4, South Knox 15.