WEST ALEXANDRIA — Ryan Bassler’s three-pointer with six seconds left in overtime lifted Twin Valley South’s boys’ basketball team to a 61-60 upset of Franklin-Monroe on Friday, Feb. 2.
With the win, South improved to 8-10 overall and 6-4 in the Cross County Conference.
“I thought we did a great job defending their star junior Ethan Conley. For the most part Jacob Wells with some help from Ryan Bassler and good awareness from the rest of our guys made it difficult for him to get many good looks at all,” South coach Tony Augspurger said. “It was the best effort defensively we have had from Jacob Wells, he really took to the challenge. The downside to that was the other guys from F-M just shot the ball superbly.”
Conley finished the game with nine points and the Jets made 9-of-16 shots from 3-point range.
Offensively, Willie Bowman just had a great night for South.
After a scoreless first quarter, going 0-for-4, he went 13-of-19 the rest of the way and just hit big shot after big shot to finish with 30 and nine rebounds, according to Augspurger.
Throughout the night, F-M kept building up a 5-7 point lead only to see South battle back.
The Panthers finally took the lead in the fourth quarter, going up by as many as seven with 2:20 to play.
Following a unique four point trip for the visitors, a turnover for South and another bucket for the Jets, F-M had whittled the Panthers lead to just one.
Nathan Osborn hit two big free throws and then F-M hit their 8th trey of the game to tie it.
After another South turnover, F-M played for the final shot of regulation.
Overtime was a back and forth affair with South down two with six seconds left setting up Bassler’s heroics.
Bowman blocked the Jets final shot attempt and the Panthers escaped with a win.
Travis Lovely was the only other Panther to score in double figures with 10.
Bassler had eight points, eight assists and zero turnovers from his point guard spot.
“Hopefully, we can use the momentum here to get ourselves going some and gain some momentum going into the tournament,” Augspurger said.
South was scheduled to play at Bradford on Tuesday, Feb. 6 and will host Arcanum on Friday, Feb. 9.
