The Stockton Tigers and the Skyline Tigers could not have been more evenly matched in their Mid-Lakes Conference showdown on Friday night.
A free throw by senior Alex Wheeler with 27 seconds left in regulation ended up being the difference as Stockton edged Skyline 55-54.
The final result came after an entertaining 32 minutes of basketball that featured an incredible 23 lead changes and 11 ties. The largest lead by either side came with 6:10 to go in the third quarter when Colton Brown’s three-pointer gave Stockton a brief—very brief—30-24 advantage.
Stockton led 25-24 at the half. The homestanding Tigers looked to penetrate inside to senior big man Grant Kenney, who scored 10 of his 14 points in the first two quarters but had to sit awhile when he picked up his third foul early in the second half. The visitors counted on the jump shooting of senior forward Dylan Mountain, who had a game-high 23 points.
“We rolled the dice that we could maintain the lead with him out,” said Stockton coach Mike Kenney about sitting his son with foul trouble. “Because we knew it was going to be physical, we wanted [Grant] in there at the end of the game. We tried to weather it a little bit and we did.”
A free throw by Mountain with 1:11 remaining broke a 52-all deadlock, but senior Eli Hubbard put Stockton back in front on a bucket with 42 ticks left on the clock. Kenney fouled Skyline junior Shawn Bryan at 27.7, and Bryan canned one of two to knot it back up at 54-54. Skyline’s Mason Lile was called for a foul against Wheeler as both were going for the rebound of the second shot, leading to Wheeler’s deciding charity toss.
Skyline worked for the last shot in the final ten seconds and somehow missed two point-blank shots in the lane. Skyline’s Josh Dansby was whistled for a foul with 0.2 remaining to virtually seal the win for Stockton, but some craziness happened before those two-tenths finally elapsed. Kenney missed the front end of the one-and-one and Skyline let the ball roll out of bounds untouched. Needing a tip-in from 84 feet away, Mountain (who was the quarterback of the Skyline football team) tried to throw a high pass hoping a teammate could touch it in, but the ball was too high and hit the rafters above center court. The ball reverted back to the previous spot and Stockton threw it in to clinch the decision.
“I thought it was a good game; I thought we played pretty well,” said Skyline coach Ryan Yates. “A couple breaks didn’t go our way, but it was what it was, just two good teams playing and they got us tonight. Give credit to Stockton, they’re a good team and their coach did a good job.”
Brown led Stockton with 18 points while Hubbard had 17.
“Everybody’s accepting their role really well,” said Coach Kenney. “We maintained and asked the guys to do the best you can. I don’t think anybody individually had a standout game, but as a team we had a great game.”
Stockton improved to 13-4 overall and 1-1 in the Mid-Lakes. Skyline fell to 12-5, 0-1. Stockton hosts Marionville on Tuesday while Skyline hosts School of the Osage.
Skyline 13 11 17 13—54
Stockton 12 13 17 13—55
Skyline: Dylan Mountain 23, Josh Dansby 11, Shawn Bryan 7, Brant Gideon 7, Mason Lile 3.
Stockton: Colton Brown 18, Eli Hubbard 17, Grant Kenney 14, Alex Wheeler 4, Jacob Collins 2.
