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Unranked Mingo Central knocks off Class AAA No. 3 Logan in a stunning 50-49

One of the first high school basketball upsets of 2023 took place high atop Miner Mountain on Tuesday night as unranked Mingo Central knocked off Class AAA No. 3 Logan in a 50-49 thriller.

With the game knotted up at 49 all Mingo junior Chris Ross hit the front end of a one-and-one with 4.8 seconds to go to give the Miners the one-point lead.

Ross’s second foul shot was off the mark, but Logan was out of timeouts, so they had to go the length of the floor to try to score. Garrett Williamson gathered the rebound, pushed the ball up the floor, and found an open Julius Clancy for a game winning three in the corner but the shot was well short and the Miner faithful erupted to their feet.

“We’re just now finding our sea legs, the kids really played hard tonight especially on the defensive end,” coach Stan Elkins said after the win. “We rebounded the ball well and did as good a job as we could on Scotty (Browning), he’s a good player. But offensively we had six guys score at least seven points. That’s the type of play we have to have.”

Sophomore Kendan Trent led the Miners with 11 points off of the bench as he came in and gave them a big boost, especially in the second and third quarters.

“Kendan (Trent) is a young man that we were looking forward to getting last year but he ended up missing all of last season with a shoulder injury,” Elkins said. “He’s basically an 9th grader experience wise. He played great for us tonight. Chris (Ross) hasn’t played since the 8th grade and Malaki (Sheppard) didn’t play last year. We’ve got a lot of guys that are inexperienced that are getting better. This was a big win for those guys and our program.”

Matt Hatfield and Jake Cline were next on the scoresheet with nine points for the Miners each while Sheppard, Ross, and Ethan Thomason each finished with seven points. Sheppard led the team with four assists while Hatfield was tops in rebounds with eight.

Senior Scotty Browning was the lone Wildcat to sniff double-figures as finished with a game high 20 points, 14 coming in the second half.

Logan got off to a slow start to begin the game as they only managed seven first quarter points and trailed 10-7 going into the second frame. Hatfield and Cline each scored five points in the opening period for Mingo.

The Wildcats turned things around in the second quarter as they opened the stanza on a 7-2 run and took their first lead of the night at 14-12 after a three by Drew Berry with 2:40 left in the half.

Berry sank another long ball with less than a minute left in the half as he got a friendly shooters-roll and gave Logan a five-point lead at 21-16 going into the break.

The third quarter featured back-and-forth action as Logan started the period with a 5-0 run to push their lead up to nine points. The Miners responded with a quick 7-0 run however and cut the lead right back down to two points at 25-23 following an and-one from Sheppard.

Logan answered that run with another spurt of their own as they built the lead back up to nine points at 36-27 after a runner in the lane from Browning late in the third period.

Mingo Central got a big bucket before the end of the third quarter however as Trent sank a corner three to cut the lead back down to six going into the fourth quarter.

The Miners carried that momentum over into the fourth quarter as they started the period on a 10-2 run and retook the lead at 40-38 after a paint bucket from Ross with 4:24 to play.

With less than two minutes to play Mingo Central was holding a 44-43 lead and were looking to run some clock. Malaki Sheppard drove into the paint and kicked the ball out to a wide-open Ethan Thomason who sank a huge corner three to give then Miners a 47-43 lead with 1:10 left.

Logan would not go away quietly as a pair of free-throws by McCormick Ilderton and a then a bucket by Browning with 33 seconds to play tied the game back up at 47.

After the basket by Browning the Miners quickly pushed the ball up the floor and the first shot clanged off the rim but Thomason was right there for a clutch putback to put Mingo back ahead by two with 20 seconds left.

After a timeout by Logan coach Zach Green, Browning was fouled on a fadeaway jumper with nine seconds to play and sank both shots to tie the game back up at 49 and set up the late game heroics from Ross.

“We’re just striving to get better,” coach Elkins said after the win. “We took a tough one last week against Bluefield, but the kids haven’t given up yet. We came up big tonight. I thought that we overcame some adversity and didn’t lose our cool...I’m just really proud of the kids.”

With the loss Logan has now dropped three straight games to see their record fall to 5-4. They were set to be back in action at Winfield on Friday, Jan. 6 and at Tug Valley on Saturday, Jan. 7.

The Miners moved one game over .500 with the win as they are now 4-3 on the season. They were set to host Wyoming East on Friday, Jan. 6 and will make the trek to Riverview on Tuesday, Jan. 10. The makeup game at Westside will be on Saturday, Jan. 14.

Score by Quarters

LHS: 7 14 15 13 — 49

MCHS: 10 6 14 20 — 50

Scoring

L: S. Browning 20, D. Berry 6, I. Miller 5, G. Williamson 4, M. Ilderton 4, C. Blankenship 3, J. Glick 3, D. Browning 2, J. Clancy 2

MC: K. Trent 11, M. Hatfield 9, J. Cline 9, C. Ross 7, M. Sheppard 7, E. Thomason 7

You can reach Tanner Halstead at thalstead@hdmediall.com or follow him on twitter @HalsteadHDMedia.

Mingo Central High School

Unranked Mingo Central knocks off Class AAA No. 3 Logan in a stunning 50-49

Unranked Mingo Central knocks off Class AAA No. 3 Logan in a stunning 50-49

Mingo Central High School

Learners Today. Leaders Tomorrow.