SPRING GARDEN – The Class 2A, Area 12 boys basketball championship game between Spring Garden and Sand Rock on Friday night was the kind of contest a movie script could be written.
Panther senior point guard Cooper Austin injured his right foot at Springville on Jan. 31 after landing awkwardly on another player’s foot. It was feared the injury was season-ending.
However, Austin iced and rehabbed and gave it a go for the first time since that game on Friday night, and he more than made a difference.
Austin sank the game-tying shot with 7.1 seconds remaining in regulation, knotting the game at 56 and ultimately sending it to overtime.
In overtime, senior guard Andrew Floyd connected on a clutch 3-pointer with 1:06 to go, giving the Panthers a lead they wouldn’t relinquish in a 69-64 victory.
The seventh-ranked Panthers (20-8) will host No. 8 North Sand Mountain in sub-regional action on Tuesday at 6 p.m. in a rematch from last year’s sub-regional round. Sand Rock (17-14) travels to third-ranked Section, also on Tuesday night.
Austin finished with 19 points, five rebounds, two assists and two steals. His performance was certainly tournament MVP worthy, but another performance from fellow senior Chaz Pope was a little more so.
Pope posted 20 points, five boards, five steals, three assists and a block for the Panthers. In Austin’s absence, Pope picked up the point guard slot, helping the Panthers not miss a beat.
Oh, and Pope himself has battled back from a broken ankle suffered in the middle of football season.
“All year long we’ve had a lot of battles to overcome,” Austin said. “In football, we lost Chaz, lost Andrew Bates, lost Landon Gowens for a little while. It’s just kind of like the next guy up. You’ve got to fill the spot. You can’t dwell on it. It’s just Spring Garden basketball. You’re not going to come out and be 100 percent every night. You’re not going to come out and be on fire every night. Sometimes you just have to claw and scrape to find that win. I think the team did a good job tonight of doing that.”
Pope deflected the praise of the tournament MVP honor.
“It’s great feeling, but I’m just happy for me and my team,” he said. “I couldn’t have done it without my team. They had the biggest part in it.
“It’s easier for me to look good when my teammates are good. It spreads everything out. All you see is me driving to the goal because everything is spread out, but if they come pack it in, I kick it to one of our guards and they’re going to knock it down. If they collapse, feed it to John and Jacob (Welsh) down there.”
Spring Garden coach Ricky Austin, who is now one victory away from 900 in his boys and girls coaching career, said his son’s injury turned out to be a “blessing by disguise.”
“Even before he got hurt, two weeks ago I was already thinking ‘He’s got to be a shooting guard against Sand Rock. I’ve got to have a different point guard,’” Coach Austin said. “Chaz has had to run point guard the past two-and-a-half weeks. He has done a great job and we were able to move Cooper.
“When they went man, it give us two better ball handlers, two better decision makers up top instead of it having to be in Cooper’s hands all the time. The injury was not by design, but we did have a little plan, a strategy ahead of that, that he was going to be a shooting guard tonight, not the point guard.”
Coach Austin also praised Pope’s performance as “just phenomenal, gutty.”
“We know he made plays with the ball, but think about the 50-50 balls he got. Think about the rebounds he got. Those things stand out to me,” he said. “Gutty, gritty, tough kid.”
Coach Austin eased Cooper Austin into the game. The younger Austin was on a bike at the start of the game, pedaling near the Panther bench until he was called into action at the 4:25 mark of the first quarter.
He made his impact almost immediately by grabbing a rebound just a few seconds after being inserted into the lineup. The Panthers managed to hold a 10-8 edge after the first quarter. He scored eight second-quarter points to help Spring Garden claim a 30-24 advantage at halftime.
“To be coming off an injury, he didn’t play like he was injured,” Coach Austin said of his son. “We didn’t think he was going to get to play. My hat’s tipped off to head trainer at JSU, Mike Polascik. He did a wonderful job getting him ready to go. He played gutsy. I thought he was in a zone.”
The Wildcats took a 47-46 lead late in the third quarter following a pair of Jacob StClair free throws. Cooper Austin tied the game at 47 heading into the fourth on a free throw with three seconds remaining.
From there, both teams seemingly traded shots up and the down the court. StClair made a jumper inside the lane with 43.7 seconds to go in regulation to give the Wildcats a 56-54 advantage, but that set the stage for Cooper Austin’s heroics to send the game into overtime.
Cooper Austin had a bit of deja vu on the game-tying shot.
“Last year, the first time we played them here, we drew up a play. We were down two, and we drew up a play for Weston (Kirk) to drive,” Cooper Austin said. “He got stopped, kicked it out to me. As I shot it, the buzzer went off. I missed and we lost.
“Ever since that game, a lot of the times when I’m in the gym, we’re down two, area championship game, clock in my head, 3-2-1. I’m just kind of visualizing it. Daddy drew up the play for me and I made the play.”
“We just run a little screen for him,” Coach Austin said. “I said ‘It’s going to be you or Jake around the basket. I want a shot around the basket.’ It worked out well. He made a great decision. He used the backboard and made a soft shot. Tough shot. Big play.”
Sand Rock coach John Blackwell said the Wildcats felt like Cooper Austin would drive to the basket on the game-tying shot.
“We talked about taking a charge,” Blackwell said. “That’s one of those plays where the referee is probably not going to make that call. They didn’t make it, but he come in and had a good, clean pull up. He made the shot, and that’s just the way it goes. We defended well. We were in front of him. We had our biggest, tallest guy (Kaden Justice) right there. He shot over our tallest guy. You’ve got to commend him for that.”
In overtime, Spring Garden managed to outscore Sand Rock 13-8 for the final.
“Coop made a huge shot to send us to overtime, and we just played our guts out,” Pope said. “Overtime was intense, that’s for sure, but in games like this, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s the area championship. It’s supposed to be the two best teams. We weren’t expecting anything less.”
John Welsh, an all-tournament selection added 14 points, 10 rebounds, three steals and a block for the Panthers. Jacob Welsh delivered eight points and nine rebounds. Floyd finished with eight points and seven boards.
StClair topped Sand Rock with 32 points, including four 3-pointers. Slade StClair sank three treys and had nine points. Logan Crider connected on two 3-pointers and had six points. Kaden Justice finished with five points.
Both StClairs and Justice were all-tournament selections.
“It was a fun game to watch and a fun game to coach,” Blackwell said. “Of course you wish things could’ve been a little different. We had everything we wanted. We got the looks we wanted. Our kids played hard. It was two good teams. It’s what you want in high school basketball.
“We played a good team. We’re a good team, and we’re still playing.”