What a game. What a scene.
A wave of students poured out from their corner perch in the gym, and Kyle Cavanaugh leaped into the arms of another teammate while Evan Fullerton found somebody, too.
A state-bound celebration? No. But it was hard not to blame the Fair Grove High School boys basketball team and their fans for acting like it.
The Eagles exacted years of revenge and eliminated the mighty Stafford Indians in a Class 3 District 11 semifinal on Thursday night as Cavanaugh raged his way to 25 points and Fullerton sank the tiebreaking and insurance free throws with 19.5 seconds left.
The 64-60 final before a capacity crowd at Fair Grove High School ended Strafford’s stranglehold on this district tournament. The Indians had won the past five district championships, usually with Fair Grove as a casualty along the way. Now Fair Grove plays host to Conway for the district championship at 6 p.m. Saturday.
“It’s a big weight lifted off our shoulders,” Cavanaugh said of the victory. “This is such an awesome thing for us. We’ve been working for these games for so long now. To get one, it’s awesome.”
Said Fullerton, “We wanted this bad.”
That said, worries of the ghosts of districts past had to have come to mind for Fair Grove down the stretch, particularly because Strafford forged a 60-all tie with 90 seconds left on Tyler Winburn’s 3-pointer in front of the Strafford bench.
This on a night when Fair Grove blew through the locker room doors before tipoff and then dropped Stafford into a double-digit hole almost immediately, leading by as many as 13 points early in the second quarter.
But Stafford adjusted to Thursday’s electric atmosphere and threatened to up end Fair Grove as the Indians did on Friday night in winning their seventh consecutive Mid-Lakes Conference championship.
“Stafford-Fair Grove is as intense as Nixa-Ozark, Kickapoo-Glendale,” Strafford coach Mike Wilson said and, just like those rivalry games, his Indians found a way to turn it into a nail-biter. “We quit turning it over, and quit giving up open looks and attacked the rim better.”
However, Fair Grove showed its mental toughness throughout and especially Fullerton, who sat for most of the fourth quarter saddled with four fouls before re-entering with about 2:20 left. He wasn’t cold.
Fullerton scored a bucket immediately to give Fair Grove a six-point lead and, although it evaporated after Wyatt Eubanks and Winburn drilled back-to-back 3s to forge the 60-all tie, Fullerton sank the decisive free throws.
That came after Strafford found deliberately in hopes of getting another attempt for a game-winner – which the Indians did. However, Strafford saw its 3-pointer hit the iron rim with about 5 seconds left.
“My team needed me, and I wasn’t going to let them down,” said Fullerton, who finished with 15 points.
Cavanaugh then sank the two clinching free throws, completing a night that started like a whirlwind for Fair Grove.
“Our attention to detail on the defensive end is what got us the (first-half) lead,” Fair Grove coach Tim Brown said. “We made some adjustments from the last time we played them. I felt we got too spread out on the defensive end and allowed a lot of straight drives and allowed their bigs to score at the basket.
“Tonight we were able to stay home, keep them out of the lane and make them earn everything they got.”
You can make a case that Fair Grove also won the game through the second half, which was essentially a war of attrition. Every time Stafford closed within a bucket, the Eagles found a way to extend the lead back to six, then seven or eight points.
For instance, Stafford pulled within 41-39 on Wyatt Cogdill’s bucket late in the third quarter. But Cavanaugh willed the Eagles back to some elbow room, scoring 13 points in the second half.
It was a disappointing ending for Strafford, although it’s difficult to say it was a disappointing season. The Indians had to replace their top eight seniors from last year’s state runner-up team and yet finished 21-7.
“We had a great year,” Wilson said. “We went undefeated through the conference again, and it went about as well as I thought. We were playing our best basketball now. We may not have played real well tonight, but at the end of the year we were playing our best.”
Fair Grove 64, Strafford 60
Strafford 7 19 13 21 – 60
Fair Grove 18 12 13 21 – 64
Strafford: Tyler Winburn 15, Wyatt Eubanks 11, Tristan Losh 5, Chanler Collins 6, Trevor Roebke 8, Sam Morton 2, Tanner Lawler 5, Wyatt Cogdill 8.
Fair Grove: Kyle Cavanaugh 25, Evan Fullerton 15, Garrett Kesterson 11, Steven Huskey 4, Mason Kesterson 3, Cody Church 5, Dalton Cloyd 1
