Columbus East’s Keaton Lawson drives to the basket against Bloomington South at Columbus East High School in Columbus, Ind., Friday, Jan. 12, 2024
Nicholas Shaw | For The Republic
It was the wildest finish that happened for Columbus East this season.
With four-tenths of a second left on the clock and the game tied, the Olympians inbounded the ball to Keaton Lawson, who was fouled at the buzzer. Lawson sank the first free throw, thus ending the game and giving East an emotional 47-46 boys basketball victory against Bloomington South at the Orange Pit Friday night.
“I was a little nervous, but I knew I had to hit the shot,” Lawson said about the game-winning free throw. “I stepped up to the free-throw line, and that’s what I did.”
With 1.4 seconds left, East (4-7) had the possession, but the inbounds pass to Alex Duncan for a possible layup was off the mark. It looked like the game was headed to overtime with .4 left with the Panthers (6-7) having to go the full length of the court. However, Bloomington South tried a trick play by passing it to another player across the out of bounds line. Since it wasn’t after a made basket, the ball was awarded to East that set up the Lawson free throw.
East coach Perry Nash credited assistant coach Braden Renbarger about going over and designing scenarios and plays during the end-game situations. It came into play Friday night.
“We’ve been doing these plays over and over and over every single time to be ready for those circumstances. I was really happy with the guys. They just had to focus,” Nash said. “They got themselves another opportunity, and I’m just really happy for the guys.”
Free throws did make a huge difference in the final outcome. The Panthers went 9 of 16 from the line, and the Olympians were 7 of 8 from the line.
“We work on free throws a lot, and we know they’re really important,” Lawson said.
The win gives East its first win over Bloomington South since Jan. 8, 2013 and also doubles its win total from last season.
One of the biggest things the Olympians needed to do was put together 32 minutes of basketball. They did just that.
“(Bloomington South) coach (J.R. Holmes) has been doing it so well down there. Our guys were hungry. They just keep working at it,” Nash said. “When these guys come in with a focus, we play very hard a lot. Sometimes, we don’t always have that focus. We really worked on that.”
The Olympians got a spark off the bench from Carter Patterson. He scored seven of the team’s 11 points in the quarter. The Panthers, meanwhile, knocked down three 3-point buckets to maintain a 14-11 lead.
It was a seesaw battle in the second quarter. There were seven lead changes, but East kept the lead at the half with a short jumper to go ahead 21-20. A 3-pointer from Mason Reeves pushed the Olympian lead to 24-20, but a 3-pointer from Vincent Moutardier made it a 24-23 Bloomington South at the break.
East ran into some foul trouble to start the second half. It gave the Panthers plenty of opportunities to add points from the line, but they couldn’t convert. Duncan put in a layup to give the Olympians a 33-31 lead with 1:56 left in the third quarter. With the score tied 35-35, Zach Sims drained a 3-pointer with under 10 seconds left in the third quarter to give Bloomington South a 38-35 lead heading into the fourth.
Six different players scored for East, with Patterson leading the way a game-high 17 points off the bench, and Lawson added 14. Jack Clark led the Panthers with 13 points.
“The past few weeks, we been really working on sharing the ball and getting the ball moving because our offense was too still,” Reeves said. “We got it moving, and we showed it tonight.”
Columbus East 47, Bloomington South 46
Bloomington South;14;9;15;8;—;46
Columbus East;11;13;11;12;—;47
Bloomington South (6-7): Clark 5 3-4 13, Spears 2 0-0 5, Sanchez 0 2-6 2, Moutardier 4 2-2 11, Combs 2 0-0 5, Sims 3 0-0 8, Shaevitz 0 2-4 2. Totals: 16 9-16 46.
Columbus East (4-7): Mason Reeves 3 0-0 7, Jackson Fischvogt 2 0-0 4, Ethan Bumbalough 0 0-0 0, Keaton Lawson 6 2-2 14, Alex Duncan 1 0-0 2, Carter Patterson 6 5-6 17, Daniel Coriden 1 0-0 3. Totals: 19 7-8 47.
3-point goals: Bloomington South 5 (Sims 2, Spears, Moutardier, Combs); Columbus East 2 (Reeves, Coriden).
