“When we were tied I thought we can’t go down like this again,” Eberhart said. “Use that as fuel.”
Eberhart (19 points) made both free throws for a two-point lead. “A lot of pressure on me, and I’m glad I put them in,” he said.
After the teams traded a free throw apiece, Northridge had the ball with 5.4 seconds left. No doubt that super-quick guard Darryl Story would get the ball and rush it up court.
“He got a little bit past the defender, and I had to help on the backside,” the 6-foot-7 Eberhart said. “Jumped up, thought I got a good block at it and they called a foul. I was just praying for our life on the free throws.”
With 0.7 left, Story (22 points) missed the first. He missed the second on purpose hoping for a tip-in, but the Polar Bears were called for a lane violation and that was it. Kenton Ridge had won 56-54 for its first tournament victory since Eberhart’s freshman season.
“We use the terminology survive and advance,” Cougars coach Kris Spriggs said. “And tonight we survived.”
The fourth-seeded Cougars (17-5) face 10th-seeded Bellbrook (10-12) at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Springfield. The 7:30 game pits No. 2 Alter (19-4) against No. 11 Ponitz (10-13). The winners meet Friday at 7 for the right to go to districts a week later at the University of Cincinnati.
Alter dominated No. 17 Northwestern from the start with lots of easy baskets to win 73-23 behind 23 points from Brady Uhl and 13 from Jack Smith. Ponitz and Urbana battled to a one-point game for three quarters, but the Panthers dominated the fourth for a 62-48 victory. Delvonte Adams scored 14 points and Dayjaun Anderson and Peyton Lyons each added 12.
Ponitz got an early jump on the fourth quarter on Devon Perdue’s 30-foot 3-pointer to end the third for the lead. Then the Panthers turned up the pressure.
“We imposed our defensive will on them and that was the No. 1 thing we had on the board,” said Ponitz second-year coach Allen Spears.
The lead reached 53-44 on a Lyons 3-pointer with 3:35 left, and 15th-seeded Urbana (11-12) was out of it despite 17 points from center Grant Hower.
“We had been preaching all week that it’s a game of runs,” Spears said. “We had a nice run in the first half, and what I communicated to the team at halftime was if we put another run together that we probably could get a little room.”
Alter had no trouble with Northwestern, jumping out to a 21-5 lead in the first quarter with lots of fast-break layups, some off turnovers and some off rebounds.
“Easy buckets are good because it calms those nerves and you can’t get in a flow,” Alter coach Eric Coulter said.
Last year the Knights upset Chaminade-Julienne in the first round and reached the district final. This year the Knights are the team to beat in the Springfield sectional.
“It makes us even hungrier coming into this year,” Alter’s Uhl said of the district loss to Cincinnati Aiken. “We want to get past that.”
The Knights are more experienced than Ponitz, but Coulter knows from experience that the second round is when upsets happen.
“When you’re the favorite sometimes you play cautious — I didn’t want my guys to play cautious,” he said. “Ponitz is aggressive, deny everything. We’re going to have to make sure we can handle pressure.”
Spears, who played in the early 90s at Patterson and put in 15 years in the Northmont program, understands the Alter tradition his young team is up against.
“I think they’re beatable, and we match up well with them, we have the athletes,” he said. “But to beat Alter it’s going to require an intelligent basketball game.”
The teams played this past summer. And while summer basketball is not on a par with winter basketball, Spears said his team came away confident that it can play with Alter.
“Either way this a great opportunity for us to advance and experience the tournament,” he said. “We don’t have anything to lose.”
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