By PEDRO VELAZCO
Northwestern boys basketball coach Jim Gish had to call his first time out Thursday less than three minutes into the game against Peru. The visiting Bengal Tigers were up 10-3 and threatening to blow the game open.
The Purple Tigers stuck around then, but in the fourth quarter, the Bengal Tigers again looked like they might run away and hide. Peru opened a 42-32 lead with 6:10 to play.
Northwestern never flinched. The Purple Tigers stayed poised, surged back into the game, forced overtime, then kicked in the afterburners in the bonus session to win 62-53.
After the game went to OT tied at 48-all, Northwestern scored the first eight points of overtime to take control. Jimmy Corcoran and Brayden Merrell were the main sparkplugs in overtime. Corcoran scored the first six points of the bonus session and Merrell added the last eight, including a perfect 6 of 6 from the free-throw line.
“Defensively, we picked it up again,” Gish said of the game’s final minutes. “It was at that point defensively: are your legs tired or are you going to suck it up and play some basketball? And I just felt like defensively, we dug our heels in and made Peru have some really tough shots.”
Peru coach Eric Thompson acknowledged that it was a big game for the Class 3A No. 8 Bengals, who were trying to maintain pace in the Mid-Indiana Conference race with Western and Hamilton Heights, both of whom have just one league loss. Dropping the 10-point lead in the fourth quarter was critical. That lead evaporated in 72 seconds with a 10-0 NW run.
“Give them tons of credit,” Thompson said of Northwestern. “They wanted it worse than we did when it counted. We did a great job at times, got a 10-point lead … and then for some reason got in panic mode both offensively and defensively.”
“I don’t know why the guys thought they had to play so fast.”
Northwestern’s defense had something to do with that. In a game where both squads went too quickly at times, the Purple Tigers forced the Bengal Tigers to falter down the stretch.
Gish said that speeding up the Bengals on offense “was kind of our goal. It was our goal to make sure that defensively we kept things at a high pace because they are so fundamentally sound. Eric does a great job with those kids, making sure they’re fundamentally sound and they will pick you apart if you just let them come down and pass and cut.”
Zech Sanders didn’t score in overtime for Northwestern, but was vital in the second half as the Purple Tigers hung around, then reeled Peru in. He scored a game-high 23 points and was 5 of 8 from 3-point land. He scored 18 points in the second half.
Merrell finished with 14 points, Corcoran scored 10 and drew praise from Gish for his defense and rebounding in addition to his scoring. Jimmy McKee added seven points.
The Northwestern coach said with this bench, he never feels like the Purple Tigers are out of the game.
“The one thing we as a coaching staff have never questioned about this group of boys is their character,” he said. “If you do things the right way, good things happen for you. This was a hard-fought game by either team, could have gone either way and it was a lot of fun to be a part of from a coach’s standpoint. And I’m sure the fans got their money’s worth too.”
Peru went up 42-32 with 6:10 to play in the fourth quarter on a free throw by Mason Zimmer, who paced the Bengals with 17 points, but fouled out in the fourth quarter after the Purple Tigers closed the gap. Taylor Smith added a dozen points for Peru, Justin Engel had eight and Terry Smith, back from a wrist injury, added six. The Bengals were just 5 of 13 from the free-throw line in the second half.
