Smith-Cotton boys can't put Parkview away

Smith-Cotton led for 30 minutes against Parkview Friday night, but when the shots mattered most, the Tigers couldn’t put the game away.

Evan Schnicker’s 40-foot jumper bounced off the back of the rim as time expired, and the Tigers gave Parkview an early Christmas gift as the Vikings escaped with a 40-38 victory.

Smith-Cotton turned the ball over late and couldn’t convert in the post or on the perimeter, while the Vikings played like it was the postseason, erasing a double-digit lead and knocking down key shots in the game’s closing minutes.

“When you don’t put your opponents away and you don’t play with intensity, there’s no winners,” Smith-Cotton coach Jimmy Lincoln said. “There’s no leadership on the floor saying ‘I want to win.’ We can’t hit free throws down the stretch and we can’t run set plays.

“Until we become a team and stop playing as individuals, we’re not going to win in close games.”

Smith-Cotton came out firing in front of the home crowd, building a 10-2 lead just four minutes into the opening quarter. Schnicker had three early steals and two long-range jumpers to give the Tigers the momentum. 

Up 12-4 at the start of the second, Smith-Cotton continued to control the game’s pace, mounting a 5-0 run off five straight points from Dominique Smith. The Vikings, unable to penetrate Smith-Cotton’s zone de-fense, scored a late basket to narrow the deficit to 19-11 headed into the locker rooms at halftime.

On the cusp of being blown out, Parkview mounted an 11-5 run to start the second half  on the back of Korry Tillery. Tillery scored nine of his game-high 17 points in the third and Parkview added three straight treys in a minute span to narrow the deficit.

Smith-Cotton answered with a Bryce Rohrer 3-pointer and the teams continued to trade baskets. Up by one point, Smith-Cotton concluded the third quarter with buzzer beater from Andrew Byrd that stretched the score to 31-28. 

The momentum shifted in the waning moments and Parkview took the lead with 1:27 left. Kendal Brown answered with a couple of clutch free throws to regain the lead and Smith-Cotton got the stop they wanted on the next possession.

With under a minute to play, the Tigers worked the clock and Parkview was forced to foul Schnicker with 19 seconds remaining.

Schnicker missed the front end of a one-and-one. Parkview corralled the rebound and called a timeout.

The Vikings looked for room down low to find Tillery and forced a pass in below the basket. Tillery came away with the loose ball and sealed the victory for Parkview with an easy lay-in with just 3 seconds left.

Smith-Cotton turned the ball over on the ensuing inbounds and couldn’t recover.

“It’s frustrating, Lincoln said. “We need to improve on game situations and I shouldn’t have to tell them they need one big stop to win the game. They don’t understand what it takes to win and they have to become smarter basketball players. Until they want to win, we’re not going to improve.”