Shouse hit one shot from the floor Friday night at Lakota West. But it was a biggie.
Shouse’s 3-pointer from the right corner with 1:22 left finished off a furious rally by the Middies as they gained sole possession of the top spot in the Greater Miami Conference with a 54-47 victory.
“For him to sit there and not have a good game and to come in and hit that shot — it took me back to the first conversation we had,” Baker said.
The play was designed to go to Vincent Edwards, but he slipped and fell. Shouse had the ball and no one close to him.
“I’m a shooter,” Shouse said. “I was open, I’m a shooter, so I took the shot.”
West (7-2, 5-1) led by as many as 11 in the second half, but the Middies came storming back with Edwards taking control.
Edwards scored the last four points of the fourth quarter on put-backs to cut the deficit to 34-29 entering the final quarter before scoring five of the first seven points of the fourth. The last, with 6:41 left, gave the Middies their second lead of the night, 36-34.
Between the time Edwards gave the Middies the lead and the time of Shouse’s big 3, the teams swapped the lead four times and were tied three other times.
“The thing I am really loving about my team, of late, is that they are not quitters,” Baker said after his squad improved to 8-3 and 6-0. “We put Vincent closer to the basket and really, the key adjustment was on defense. We really guarded. We got every loose ball and made every hustle play.”
And Edwards started to heat up.
Edwards was four of six in the fourth quarter as he ended with 22 points and 16 rebounds.
“We didn’t get stops in the fourth quarter,” West coach Sean Van Winkle said. “They started to get the ball to Vincent Edwards and we don’t have anyone on our roster who can stop him.”
West took its last lead, 45-44, on two of Tyler Williams’ 22 points with 1:41 left.
The Firebirds used a pair of first-half runs to take a 24-17 lead into the intermission.
Rod Griffin’s steal and lay-in gave West a 7-0 lead with 5:58 left in the first half, but things got interesting from there.
Middletown came roaring back to tie the game at 9-9 on a 3 by Khylan Jackson and a long two from Justin Anderson with 3:08 left in the first. West pushed the lead back to 13-9, but a basket by Kobie Johnson and a long three by Edwards — his first points — gave the Middies their first lead, 14-13 with 1:52 remaining.
The teams swapped the lead three times in the final minute of the first quarter and first three minutes of the second quarter. Tyler Bowling hit a trey with 1:08 left in the opening period to give the hosts a 16-4 lead. Edwards opened the second quarter with an old-fashioned three-point play to put the Middies back up one, but Malik Grove’s short jumper put the Firebirds back on top 18-17 with 5:05 left in the half.
Grove’s basket was the beginning of a dry spell as the teams combined to score just six points over the final five minutes, turning the ball over a combined 22 times in the half.
Middletown was just 2-for-9 from 3-point range (22-percent) while West hit 30 percent from the floor (10 of 33).
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