The hero from a season ago watched from the bench.
After Zycheus Dobbs fouled out of the prep boys basketball Class AAA state championship game against Shady Spring with 1:28 left, it left the door open for someone else to be the hero.
DeSean Goode and Connor Gower walked right through it.
In last year’s title bout, Dobbs hit the game-winning shot in the final seconds to defeat the Tigers 60-59. That was more than he scored in Saturday’s contest, held to a single point, but the Polar Bears dug deep and edged top-seeded Shady Spring 47-42 to repeat as champions.
“Obviously I wanted to be on the court, but everyone stepped up and they held it down,” Dobbs said. “It’s all right if I’m on the bench.”
Leading by three points in the closing seconds, Goode tipped a missed shot, which Gower took the length of the floor. He laid it in near the buzzer to ice the Tigers. Goode scored a team-high 18 points and pulled down eight rebounds, setting the tone on both ends of the floor.
After falling behind by eight points in the opening minutes, Fairmont Senior rattled off 12 of the next 14 points to jump in front midway through the second quarter, but a stellar performance from the Tigers’ Braden Chapman gave Shady the edge at halftime, 21-20.
Chapman finished with a game-high 23 points, making eight of his first nine shot attempts. He hauled in seven rebounds, dished out two assists and logged three steals, stuffing the stat sheet in just about every way possible.
It wasn’t any consolation for Chapman, though, who entered the postgame news conference in tears along with teammate Ammar Maxwell. The two combined for 36 of Shady Spring’s 42 points in the loss. Between them with outstretched arms that extended all the way to coach Ronnie Olson on the end was Jaedan Holstein.
“Emotion is good. What you see right here is not weakness,” Olson said. “Anybody that has followed Braden Chapman knows he puts everything he has into every single play. I didn’t want to give this speech. [Fairmont Senior] did a good job and executed. Some balls didn’t bounce our way, but I’m proud of my guys.”
The Polar Bears made their final six shot attempts, while Shady misfired on five of its six, and that was the difference in a game decided by just five points. Perhaps an even bigger difference-maker was the switch to a 2-3 zone defense by coach David Retton, an abnormal look for the Polar Bears.
“We wanted to control the tempo with our defense. We switched and played a lot of 2-3 tonight, probably more than we did all season, but it’s what the game dictated,” Retton said. “To these guys’ credit, they bought into it and they executed it.”
Shady Spring led 38-35 after Chapman split from the free throw line before the Polar Bears rattled off the next seven points in 68 seconds to regain the lead for good. In that sequence, Gowen hit the go-ahead triple with 3:11 to go and Fairmont Senior closed the contest on a 12-4 run to claim the championship.
