Badin falters in final quarter

Rams fall to McNicholas at home for the first time in six years.

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By Jay Morrison, Staff Writer 1:52 AM Saturday, January 7, 2012

HAMILTON — The Badin High School boys basketball team used a nearly perfect first quarter to build a double-digit lead, and a tragically flawed fourth to give it all away.

Down by 12 less than six minutes into the game, McNicholas took advantage of some shaky offense and suspect defense by the Rams in the closing minutes, capping the comeback when Drew Hall hit a bucket in the paint with 25.3 seconds to go to give the Rockets their first lead.

Hall added a pair of free throws with 10 ticks remaining, and Badin’s last-second 3-point attempt rimmed out to send McNicholas to an improbable 36-33 victory in front of a stunned crowd at Mulcahey Gym.

“We gave that game away,” Badin coach Nick Argentati said. “When you’re up eight going into the fourth quarter, you’ve got to win the ball game.

“All we had to do was either guard at the end or make free throws at the end,” he added. “If we do one of those two things in the last minute and a half, we win.”

But the Rams (6-3 overall, 1-2 Greater Catholic League Central Division) didn’t make a single field goal in the fourth quarter and went two-for-five from the free throw line.

The Rockets (4-5, 1-2 GCL Central) finished the game on a 15-2 run, with Hall scoring nine of his game-high 19 points in the final 4:40.

“We were dead in the water,” McNicholas coach Tim Monahan said. “At halftime, when we only had 11 points, I’m thinking deep down, ‘Man, this is going to be a rough one,’ especially being here where we haven’t won in forever. But these guys kept fighting and pulled it out.”

It had been six years to the day since the Rockets won at Mulcahey, a 47-46 triumph on Jan. 6, 2006. Early on it looked as though the Rams would continue their dominance when they hit six of their first seven shots to race out to a 14-2 lead.

McNick switched to a zone defense that slowed the Badin offense considerably, although the Rams still led by 10 with 1:05 left in the third quarter.

After committing only four turnovers through the first 24 minutes, the hosts gave away the ball seven times in 14 possessions in the final frame.

“We had plenty of chances in the fourth quarter to put the game away, and we just didn’t make the plays,” Argentati said. “We could have put them away in the second quarter if we would’ve done a better job of attacking the zone and making shots. You can look back over the course of the game and find all kinds of ways we could’ve won that game, but the bottom line is we didn’t do it.”

Jimmy Kes led the Rams with 10 points, while Joe Marot and Jonathan Kirsch each added seven.

Badin returns to action Tuesday at home against Dayton Christian.

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