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Eagles fight back to upend Vikes

By RICKEY CLARDY ~ Sports Writer
Posted 12/24/21

UNIONVILLE — The Shelbyville Central Eagles battled back from deficits with three big runs in their contest against the Community Vikings Friday night, including a 16-0 run in the second half …

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Eagles fight back to upend Vikes

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UNIONVILLE — The Shelbyville Central Eagles battled back from deficits with three big runs in their contest against the Community Vikings Friday night, including a 16-0 run in the second half to take the lead for good and held on for a 65-62 victory over the Vikings in an intra-county basketball game.
The Eagle win avenged a loss to the Vikings a week ago.
With the help of five points from Stratton Lovvorn and four from Maki Fleming, Community (4-7) appeared to be in control and took a 10-1 lead just three minutes into the opening quarter.
"That's all on me," Coach Kody Howard of the Eagles said. "We started out in a zone and they were ready for it. My guys said let's go man and we're going to lock them up."
"All the credit to my guys for sitting down and guarding them and making it tough on them," Howard added.
Shelbyville (3-8) bounced back with an 8-0 run to cut the Viking lead to 10-9 as Devyn Heath scored five points. 
The Vikings ended the quarter with a 14-9 lead.             
 "We came out and started pretty well," Coach Robbie Davis of the Vikings said. "We shot free throws better than we have.  But we stopped attacking the basket."
Lovvorn scored five points in the second quarter and Jacob Flannagan added four as the Vikings maintained their lead at 24-21 with 1:50 left.
But the Eagles stayed close as Jayshon Jones scored nine points and Heath added six. 
A trey by Jones tied the game at 24-24 and a field goal and free throw by Heath with less than a minute to go propelled the Eagles to a 27-24 lead at the intermission.
Lovvorn stayed hot with 10 points in the third quarter as the Vikings used an 8-0 run to gain the momentum and took a 42-36 lead with 1:30 remaining before Shelbyville went on its biggest run.
Joe Harris came up big with two treys and Jones added a late field goal as the Eagles scored the last eight points of the quarter to take a 44-42 lead to the fourth quarter.
Harris was not through with his three-point barrage as his trey to start the quarter gave the Eagles a 47-42 advantage.  Another trey and field goal by Zay Reese completed the 16-point run and gave Shelbyville a 52-42 lead with 5:30 left.
With Lovvorn, Fleming, and Ramon Hernandez each scoring five points in the quarter, the Vikings fought back with eight consecutive points of their own to cut the Eagle lead to 52-50 with 4:00 left.
Shelbyville held a slim 58-54 advantage in the final minute before a field goal by Jason Ragland and two free throws by Jones gave the Eagles a 62-54 lead with 22 seconds left.
Two free throws in the final seconds by Heath gave the Eagles a 65-59 lead and was enough to offset a trey at the buzzer by Hernandez.
Jones had three dunks and joined Heath with 17 points to lead the Eagles.
Lovvorn scored 25 points to lead three Vikings in double figures. 
Fleming and Hernandez each added 11.
Shelbyville was 13-of-21 at the free throw line while Community was 15-of-18.    
"The struggle is real for us," Davis said. "Usually by now you should start progressing in a lot of areas and right now we're not.  We are deficient in things that keep getting us beat."
"There's not a connection from the practice to the game," Davis added.  "We've got to simplify things even more and get more down to the basics."
"Hats off to them.  They were better than us tonight, by far," Davis said.   
"All we did this week at practice is work half court man-to-man and work half court offense," Howard said.
"It's a credit to our guys for playing as hard as they could," Howard added. "The game rewards you when you play it the right way and our guys tonight played it the right way."
The Eagles played Providence Christian Monday while the Vikings take on Franklin County for a 3:30 p.m. game Tuesday at the Tullahoma Classic.

                              

Shelbyville       9 18  17  21 — 65
Community    14 10  18  20 — 62

 

Shelbyville: Joe Harris 9, Kyler Trice 5, Terrance Johnson 4, Zay Alexander 1, Jeremiah Jones, Jayshon Jones 17, Devyn Heath 17, Jason Ragland 7, Zay Reese 5, Tim Parsons.
Community: Stratton Lovvorn 25, Maki Fleming 11, Ramon Hernandez 11, Jason Cullum 4, Noah Newkirk 3, Jacob Flannagan 7, Cole Crockett 1, Trace Broiles.
3-Point goals: Shelbyville (8): Harris 3, Jones 2, Heath, Trice, Reese; Community (5): Lovvorn 4, Hernandez.
Halftime score: Shelbyville 27, Community 24.