As the Rapid City Central boys basketball team filed out of the locker room on Friday night, they weren’t necessarily disappointed because they lost to Aberdeen Central. They were upset because they believe they beat themselves.
“We kept in it, even though at times we were our own worst enemy,” Cobbler head coach Mike Purcell said following Rapid City Central’s 62-59 loss at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center.
To be sure, Purcell gave credit to Aberdeen Central (20-4 overall) for the way it played Friday in the Class AA state semifinal game. Still, the Cobblers picked a terrible time to come up with a performance that didn’t meet the lofty standards they set for themselves all season long.
“We had 11 turnovers in the first half, but the bigger thing about that, I thought overall, defensively, we played a really good game,” Purcell said. “We just had too many mental errors that had nothing to do with the pressure of the game.”
Aberdeen Central’s Andrew Janish capped the Golden Eagles’ comeback from a eight-point fourth-quarter deficit, hitting a runner in the lane for a 60-59 lead with 12 seconds left. After Rapid City Central’s Dimitri Fahey turned the ball over on his drive to the basket, Janish answered with a pair of free throws for the final margin.
Turnovers and missed free throws proved to be the demise of Central, which finished with 18 turnovers and were just 9-of-23 from the free-throw line, including a 5-for-9 effort in the final quarter.
“If we hit free throws we wouldn’t be talking about any of this,” Purcell said.
Even with the Cobblers misfiring, they still were in control after Marcus Kiewel converted a pair of free throws to hand Central a 51-43 lead with 4:48 left in the game. The Golden Eagles then took off, cutting into the lead on a three-point play by Wil Carlson to make it 51-46. On its next possession, Aberdeen Central’s Jared Hannigan, who finished with a game-high 21 points, converted his own three-point play, trimming the Cobblers’ lead to 51-49 with 4:14 left in the game.
Aberdeen Central continued the surge, getting a 3-pointer from Andrew Janish, who was 2-of-4 from 3-point range and finished with 16 points, to give the Golden Eagles a 52-51 lead with 3:43 left.
“I felt really good about things when we had the eight-point lead,” Purcell said. “I really felt at that time, we were going to do what we had to do. I felt we were going to stay calm, stay relaxed, get good shots with our best shooters and get a couple of stops on defense. Just didn’t turn out that way.”
After Aberdeen Central extended the lead to 54-51 on a bucket from Hannigan, the Cobblers ended the scoring drought with a three-point play from Glenn Jackson, who drove the lane and was able to hang in the air before getting his bucket to go as he was fouled. Jackson converted the free throw to tie the game at 54-54 with just under 2 minutes left.
The Cobblers had a chance to retake the lead on their next possession. Jackson missed a pair of free throws, but teammate Tyler Aquallo grabbed the offensive rebound, but missed the putback attempt and was called for the rebounding foul after the miss. The Golden Eagles took advantage of the good fortune, getting a free throw from David Westby and a 3-pointer from Spencer Flakus to push the lead back to four points, 58-54.
Rapid City Central, though, had one more rally in them. Jackson, who finished with 10 points, hit a short bucket and them pressure defense from Aquallo and K.J. Bad Wound forced a Golden Eagle turnover. Aquallo then hit an off-balance 3-pointer to give the Cobblers their last lead of the night at 59-58, setting up Janish’s game-winning heroics.
“We played hard and the kids have a lot of class,” Purcell said. “We are so proud of them, because they don’t hang their heads and they come out and play hard and do everything we ask of them.”
The loss dropped the Cobblers (17-6) into today’s third-place game against Huron, a 55-35 loser to Sioux Falls O’Gorman, at 6 p.m.
“We are going to go out and fight with every ounce of energy we’ve got to take that third-place trophy. We want to go out with a win, only four teams get to do that,” Purcell said. “We want to be one of those teams.”
Aberdeen Central, which is looking for its first state championship since 1988, advanced to today’s title game against Sioux Falls O’Gorman at 8 p.m. at the civic center.
