Pirates pull out win late over Bobcats

Heading into the make-up game against Erath on Monday night, the Kaplan Pirates saw themselves sitting a few spots out of the top 32 in the power rankings, but atop the district 6-3A standings.

“We have a tough road ahead of us,” Kaplan Pirates Head Coach Jeff Davis said. “I told the kids that we our backs are against the wall. As of tonight (Monday), we have five games left with four on the road. That’s tough. I don’t care how we have
to do it; we just need to win. That’s all that matters right now, winning.”

For the Pirates winning needed to start Monday night against the Bobcats, and it may have taken them most of the game to get the lead but they were able to pull out the 43-36 victory.

The Bobcats started that game out strong.

They were able to start strong because of the stellar play of freshmen Elijah Mitchell.

Mitchell would score eight of the Bobcats 11 points in the first half, giving them the slight 11-10 lead heading into the second quarter.

The second quarter is where the Bobcats would grab their largest lead.

It started with the Bobcat defense standing tough and only allowing the Pirates to score four points in the second quarter, all of which were by Jalen Bates.

The offense for the Bobcats was able to put up 10 points in the second quarter to take a 21-14 lead into the halftime break.

Aaron Greene scored seven of the Bobcats’ 10 points in the second quarter. Mitchell scored the other three.

“The first half was rough for us,” Davis said. “We had 14 points and 11 turnovers in the first half. That’s not good.”

The third quarter started out much as the first and second quarter did for the Pirates.

Fortunately for them the defense was stepping up and not allowing the Bobcats to score.

There was about six minutes left on the clock when the Pirates started to make a run to catch up from the seven point hole they found themselves in.

It wasn’t until the Kaplan’s Kaylon Rudd hit a three with less than two minutes left in the third quarter before the Pirates tied it up, at 27, for the first time since it was 0-0 at the beginning of the game.

Greene for Erath, was able to retaliate with a lay-up 30 seconds later to give Erath the lead at 29-27.

The Bobcats would be in the lead at the end of the third quarter with a 29-28 lead.

Greene scored all eight points for the Bobcats in the third quarter.

It took both teams a couple of minutes in the fourth quarter to get things going, but once they did it was a back and forth game.

Blake Touchet with six minutes left in the game would lay the ball in to give the Pirates their first lead of the game at 30-29.

Elijah Mitchell would hit a three-pointer with 4:21 left in the game, to give Erath the 32-30 lead. It would also start a run of four straight possessions that would result in four straight lead changes.

Touchet for Kaplan would hit a three on the very next possession to give the Pirates the 33-32 lead.

Only 30 seconds later, in the following possessions, Jeremiah Mitchell would fight his way inside and give Erath the 34-33 lead.

The very next possession, Darius Jordan of Kaplan would hit a 15 foot jump shot to give the Pirates the 35-34 lead.

This would be the last time the lead would change hands.

Kaplan would go on to add eight more points, all free throws, to give the Pirates the 43-36 final score.

Rudd would score seven of his 11 points and 14 of Kaplan’s fourth quarter points in the fourth quarter.

“We are a second half team,” Davis said. “I get rattled in the first half even though I should know better. I think defense really stepped up in the second half. That and our rebounding got much better in the second half.

“I think this would have been a different game had we shot better from the free throw line. You have to give it to Erath though. They gave us everything they had, and it was almost more than we could handle.”

Aaron Greene led the way in scoring for the Bobcats with a team and game high 15 points. Elijah Mitchell was a close second with 14 points.

Alec Toups, Ross Bares and Jeremiah Mitchell each added two points.

Blake Touchet and Kaylon Rudd led the Pirates in scoring with 11 points.

Jalen Bates and Devante Davis added eight and seven points respectively.

Darius Jordan and Joseph White rounded out the scoring for the Pirates with three and two points apiece.

Andy Bullard
Sports Editor