Moore’s basket with no time left spoils Wildcats rally
Spring – With no time left, senior guard D.J. Moore converted a fast break layup to help send the Klein Bearcats to 55-53 victory over Dekaney in district 13-5A on Tuesday night at Andy Dekaney High School.
The win pushed the Bearcat’s record to (14-6) and (2-2) in district play.
The score was knotted 53-all, when the Bearcats took a time out with 1.5 seconds left in regulation to setup the winning play. Klein players lined the baseline while Moore lobbied around before breaking free toward the basket on the south end of the court as guard Cooper Hudson inbounded a baseball pass from the north end of the court. Meanwhile the ball was deflected by a Dekaney defender, but Moore kept his focus while grabbing the ball as he laid the ball in off the glass before the buzzer sounded.
“He (Coach Arnold) just drew it up, I don’t know why he gave it to me but I’ll take it,” Klein’s guard J. D. Moore said. “I just sprinted to the basket and Hudson threw a perfect pass.”
Klein’s Coach Glenn Arnold said, “Well we were very blessed; yes we drew it up (about the winning basket). They were set for it, the ball went to us. The good lord was on our side. That play could have gone any way, the ball deflected off a Dekaney defender and J. D. Moore finished it. It couldn’t have happened any better for us. They (Dekaney) wasn’t aware of it. We were fortunate.”
After playing from behind most of the game, the Wildcat’s 6’3” guard Kasey Shepherd took possession of a defensive rebound with 21 seconds to go in the game and had a chance at the last shot before regulation ended, but wing player Dion Fisher turned the ball over when the referee spotted one of his feet on the out-of-bounds line.
Klein led by as many as 11-points with 2:52 left in the third quarter but the Wildcats chipped away at the deficit. Mark Davis, who finished with 17-points, knocked down a trey to pulled Dekaney (17-8, 2-2) within 5-points, 45-40. Moments before, Moore converted two free throws to close out the quarter 47-40.
A low scoring first quarter watched Klein take a 14-9 lead after one quarter. Shepherd penetrated the Bearcats solid zone defense and was fouled while scoring. His free throw cut the lead to, 14-12. Soon after, Klein built a 20-14 lead with the inside and out presents of forward Rex Baxter and Center Andrew Kelley. However, the score tighten as Dekaney battled back with its guard combo of Davis and Shepherd who combined for 37 of the Wildcat 53-points.
Baxter led the Bearcats with 15 points.
Klein, weary of the fact, that the Wildcats strength is driving lane, stayed in its 1-3-1 zone defense for most of the evening, something they’ve done very little this season Coach Glenn Arnold said.
“We’ve worked on it a little all year long (zone defense). We run it very little, but their no 21 is a real good player (Kasey Shepherd). All of their players can take it to the basket,” said Coach Glenn Arnold. We put the zone in to stop the penetration then they knocked down a couple of threes so we had to come out of it but we went back in it.”
“The zone defense is pretty difficult when you have a smart coach, he knows that when their playing against a team that’s going to get most of their points off driving to the basket. It was pretty difficult to score against their zone today,” Kasey Shepherd Dekaney’s guard said, who scored a game high 20 points.”
Each times Dekaney tied the score; Klein would answer with a basket to keep a slight cushion. Baxter made good on a pair of foul shots before Shepherd and Davis drained four consecutive foul shots to pull the Wildcats within two, 28-26 with under 2:00 left in the second quarter, but again the Bearcats countered, this time with two layups from Derek Johnson to enter halftime up 32-28.
Klein opened a 10-point lead to begin the third quarter as Baxter and Austin Shockley scored on close range shots, 38-28 with 4:40 to go. The next trip down the court fisher stopped Klein’s run with a layup.
The much bigger Bearcats had the edge in rebounds, 10-4 in the fourth quarter, which helped in its cause for the victory.
Trailing by 7-points early in the fourth quarter, Dekaney tied the game at 53 but eventually the rally fell short as time expired when Moore’s scored the winning basket.
“We didn’t want anyone to get behind us; we didn’t want to get sucked in on the ball so that they wouldn’t throw it deep, but they threw it deep. We made a mistake on defense,” Dekaney’s coach Chris Wilson said.