BROOKVILLE — Eaton let a 12-point lead slip away in the fourth quarter against host Brookville, but got some late game heroics to pull out a thrilling 53-51 win in a Southwestern Buckeye League Southwestern Division boys basketball game on Tuesday, Dec. 10.
With the game tied at 51-all with 3.1 seconds left, Eaton’s Breyden Bosten threw an inbound pass three-quarters the length of the court to Cameron Lewis, who was surrounded by three Blue Devils. Lewis took one dribble then found Trevor Long, who was wide open in the lane, for the game winning layup as time expired.
The play was option No. 3 for the Eagles.
“The last play, our first option was to get somebody going to the rim. They took that away with two guys. Our next option was bringing a guy of the criss-cross to the ball and our third option was deep opposite,” Eaton coach Denny Shepherd said. “Hoping to drag them all, didn’t drag them all but Cameron Lewis went up and made a heck of a play and brought it down, took a dribble to the basket. Trevor was that other guy that was in the middle. He was our safety, he went to the opposite side, got the pass and laid it in.”
Long’s heroics came moments after Brookville’s AJ Eller made a deep 3-pointer to tie the game.
“I think our guys handled adversity very well,” Shepherd said. “I don’t know if I handled adversity very well. Some adversity set in where we didn’t get a lot of calls for a long time. We handled it. I’m proud of them.”
Shepherd said the game plan was to take Eller out of the mix.
They did – for a half.
He scored 23 of his game-high 27 points in the second half.
“We did our job in the first half,” Shepherd said. “So, we did about half our job, but it was enough to win.”
Eaton led 8-5 after the first quarter.
In the second quarter, Eaton led most of the time only to see the Blue Devils rally to tie the game twice at 17 and 19.
From there, Eaton junior Travis Pittman went on a personal 9-0 run covering the final 1:16 of the half and the fist 2:34 of the third quarter as the Eagles built a 28-19 lead.
A basketball by senior Hunter Frost pushed the lead to 30-19 and Eaton still led 38-26 after three.
In the fourth, Eaton scored just two point in the first 4:30 as the Blue Devils got within 40-36.
The Eagles never gave up the lead, although Brookville closed to within 45-44 with 2:03 left.
Eaton extended the lead to 49-44 with 1:42 to play and still led 51-48 with 10.9 remaining setting up a wild finish.
Eaton placed four players in double figures with Pittman leading the way with 15. Long added 12, Frost 11 and Boston 10.
“It’s just another move in the right direction,” Shepherd said of winning a league game on the road. “We’ve had teams here in the past that would have folded there. We found a way.”
On Friday, Eaton fell to a solid Oakwood team 79-54, at home.
After a highly contested first quarter, in which the Eagles trailed 21-17, Oakwood started to pull away.
The Lumberjacks led 42-27 at the half and 64-41 after three.
Lewis led Eaton with 20 point and five rebounds. Pittman, Boston and Frost each added seven. Boston also had 10 rebounds..
Eaton (3-2, 1-1 SWBL) was scheduled to host Valley View on Tuesday, Dec. 17. The Eagles will entertain Monroe on Friday and Arcanum on Saturday.
