It may not have always been a thing of beauty, but the Kokomo boys basketball team held off a stubborn Huntington North ballclub to earn its ninth win of the season in 15 tries and even its North Central Conference record with a 43-35 decision that went all 15 rounds Friday at Memorial Gymnasium.
The Wildkats jumped out to a 10-2 advantage and led the undermanned Vikings by as much as 30-17 midway through the third quarter yet found themselves up only 38-35 with 2:52 left to play.
But the defense stiffened, holding North scoreless on two possessions, and 5 of 6 free-throw shooting by Kokomo sealed the victory.
“Our execution wasn’t great, but our intensity and our effort was, and that’s what won us the ballgame,” Kats coach Brian McCauley said. “A lot of times when you have an off-night offensively, defense is going to have to win it for you and defense won it for us [Friday] night.”
The Vikings (5-7, 1-2 NCC) were without three injured players — 6-foot-6 senior Zach Sovine, 6-4 David Ballard and 6-3 Kevin Fisher — and started four guards around 6-6 Tannan Peters, something that should have had the taller and more athletic Wildkats salivating.
And for the start of each half Kokomo played that way as senior Alan Arnett scored five of his game-high 12 points, including a driving two-handed dunk, and assisted on another basket in that initial 10-2 burst.
Again to start the third period, it was Arnett with another dunk and another assist of a Brock Barbary bucket at the 4:35 mark that produced Kokomo’s largest lead at 30-17.
“Kokomo is a nice team. They have some inside-outside game and some weapons you have to contend with,” said North coach Joe Bradburn. “For instance, the [second] play of the game. We talked about Arnett drives it left, and our guys get caught chasing their own guy and the ball goes right behind them and [Arnett] dunks on us.”
Plagued by turnovers in the first half and poor shooting in the second, though, the Kats let both leads slip away.
In the first half it was the hot shooting of Matt Kramer that led Huntington North back into the ballgame. Kramer, the sophomore brother of Purdue standout Chris Kramer, nailed 3 of 3 shots from 3-point range to keep the Vikes close. His first 3 to end the first quarter gave North its only lead at 11-10.
The Wildkats did an excellent job on Kramer and the rest of the Vikings in the second half, holding him scoreless and the team without a 3-point field goal on six attempts. For the game North shot 4 of 19 from behind the arc (21 percent) and 13 of 39 from the field (33 percent).
“We made a point of emphasis at halftime to really get up into [Kramer] more and be more aggressive in contesting his 3s,” said McCauley. “We held them to 35 points, so obviously I thought our defensive effort, our defensive intensity was good. Our offensive execution, though, was sloppy.”
Sloppy it was. And stone-cold in the second half — 5 of 16 from the field and only 1 of 9 from 3-point range — after shooting 63 percent in the first half.
Rebounds were a push against the smaller Vikings at 24 apiece, while turnovers were 16-17 in favor of North. It ultimately came down to who would make the stops at the end, and that went Kokomo’s way.
“I’m very proud of the way our guys found a way to win,” McCauley said. “[Huntington North] cut [the lead] to three [points] a couple times and we didn’t panic. We dug in and got the stops defensively when we needed to.”
Arnett had four blocked shots to go with his 12 points and teammate Patrick Hopkins swatted away three shots and grabbed a game-high seven boards. Colton Summers added 10 points and four rebounds.
The Vikings were paced by three players with nine points each, Rob Sands, Jordan Beaver — who scored all of his points in the second half — and Kramer.
“Kokomo has a nice chance to make a run in the tournament because they have the elements you need,” Bradburn said. “But our guys need to understand how to defend that and get better because we have a lot of teams like that coming up.”
Sports
HOOPS: Wildkats hold off Vikings
Kokomo evens league record
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Kats lose heartbreaker
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