Meadow Heights edges Leopold in double overtime

PATTON — Meadow Heights outlasted visiting Leopold 76-65 on Tuesday, Jan. 21, in double overtime.

Each side maintained a lead inside of 30 seconds in both regulation and the first overtime. However, two four-minute overtime periods were required to determine the victor in this conference matchup.

The contest featured 10 lead changes as well as five ties, all in the second half or later. Leopold’s largest lead was five points (13-8), while Meadow Heights led by as many as six in the fourth quarter before the Wildcats stormed back to force overtime.

“The big thing right there at the end that we were reinforcing to our boys was keep your composure. You’ve just got to keep your composure and play through it,” Meadow Heights head coach Gary Poyner said. “You’ve got to have a short memory. You make a mistake and something doesn’t go right, you’ve got to keep going and keep hustling. You can’t let one mistake go into two mistakes, three mistakes. That was the big thing we kept telling them in the fourth quarter and overtime.”

Meadow Heights only had scoring contributions from four players, but each reached double figures. Senior Braedon Hays had a game-high 34 points, which included eight 2-point field goals, four 3-pointers and 6 free throws. Junior Mason Mayfield tallied 19 points and did much of his damage at the free throw line, where he shot 10 of 12, all in the fourth quarter and second overtime. Senior Damion Hulbert collected 13 points, while senior Maison Whitener made five field goals to finish with 10 points.

Sophomore Tommy Beussink scored 21 points for the Wildcats, including four of his team’s eight 3-pointers. Junior Preston Campbell contributed 19 points and junior Riley Engelen finished with 14. Josh Horrell contributed eight points, including two fourth-quarter 3-pointers. Cohen Campbell added a fourth-quarter free throw. Drew Engelen was 1 of 2 at the foul line before fouling out.

Beussink’s 3-pointer with 25 seconds to go in regulation knotted the game at 58 and the Panthers couldn’t get a shot off in time before the fourth quarter ended.

Meadow Heights held a 16-15 lead after the first quarter and 27-26 at halftime. It was 41-40 in favor of Leopold heading into the fourth quarter, and the Wildcats had a three-point lead in the closing minute of the first overtime. However, a 3-pointer from Hays with 25 seconds remaining tied the contest at 63 and Leopold was unable to get a shot attempt in the closing seconds. From there, the Panthers outscored the Wildcats 12-2 to earn the home victory and improve to 6-6 on the season.

“We didn’t guard like we normally do,” Leopold coach Jimmy Lincoln said. “They attacked us a little bit more. We just didn’t do a good job of guarding. We weren’t in gaps tonight. You’ve got to hand it to them. They’re the ones that took the ball to the basket. We played hard all night long. Offensively, we did the little things we should have done. Just a few breakdowns late in the ballgame, more breakdowns in the overtime that we’ve got to learn from.”

Poyner was pleased with each team’s rebounding effort.

“This is one of the better games we’ve had on the boards overall this year, especially at the offensive end,” Poyner said. “We came up big today on both ends of the floor getting rebounds, especially late in the game and then in overtime.”

Both teams finished with 10 turnovers in the game. The Wildcats were 26 of 49 from the field — and 8 of 20 on 3-pointers — as well as 6 of 9 at the free-throw line, while Meadow Heights converted 26 of 44 shot attempts. The Panthers went 4 of 13 on 3-pointers and 17 of 23 at the foul lines.

“It’s late in the year, it’s tough to go on the road, and they are much better than what their record indicates,” Lincoln said. “It was just a good old conference ballgame, and we got beat.”

Meadow Heights improved to 6-6, while Leopold dropped to 9-7.