In an unbelievable finish, the DC Yellow Jackets fell to Hanover, the #3 team in the nation, 64-63 after the Panthers went on an 8-2 run in the last minute of the game.
Matt Laudick, a sophomore from Ottawa-Glandorf, tipped-in a Matt Voland miss to make the score 63-62 with 3.7 seconds remaining. Panther guard Matt Moore took the in-bounds pass and drove the length of the floor, showing the presence of mind to take one last dribble before getting off a sweeping runner as the buzzer sounded. As the shot hit the bottom of the net, so did the Jacket players, who had nearly upset the conference-champion and nationally-ranked Panthers.
Voland led the Jacket attack with 16 points, six rebounds and three assists. Brett Hammons was the only other Jacket in double-figures with 13 points on 3-of-3 three-point shooting and going 4-of-4 from the line. Laudick, Curt Croy and freshman Ryan Bruley scored nine points apiece. Hanover was led by Moore’s 19 points with none of them coming easily.
The Panthers’ Thad McCrackin hit a three following a Jacket turnover in the last 30-seconds to give HC their two-point lead with 14 seconds left, leading up to Laudick’s tip-in.
Prior to the frantic finish, the Jackets had a chance to go up by 10 points (58-50) with five-minutes remaining. A DC turnover gave Hanover the ball on a fast break that Moore converted. Defiance committed four turnovers in the last five minutes as the Panthers converted on free-throws by Ben Lye and Tommy Dennis, a lay-up by Nate Minyard, before McCracken and Moore’s late-game heroics.
Defiance was fueled by the home crowd to start the contest, taking a 7-2 lead on a Voland lay-in four-minutes into the game. After the Panthers clawed back to take a 16-14 lead, DC went on a 19-9 run to make the score 33-27 with two-minutes left in the first and went into the half up three, 33-30.
DC once again rode the emotion of the Defiance faithful, taking a double-digit lead (43-33) on a Croy jumper three-minutes into the half, and held an eight-point lead after a circus Croy three-pointer that beat the shot clock with six-minutes left.
The fight in the Yellow Jackets today was demonstrated by their 31-28 edge on the boards while they established a good inside-out game, hitting 10-of-18 threes and went 11-of-15 from the line as a team. Hanover got-off eight more shots than DC and outscored the Jackets 19-6 in points-off-turnovers.
The strides the Jackets have taken in recent weeks were shown on the floor today. Fans watching the Jackets in mid-December would not recognize the efficient, scrappy attack that DC was pulled together over the last month-and-a-half, save the last five-minutes. The emergence of players like Bruley, Voland and Hammons give the rest of the HCAC a reason to worry entering the HCAC Tournament in two weeks.
Prior to the tournament, DC will host rival-Bluffton on Wednesday and travel to Transylvania to close the regular season on Saturday. The Bluffton Beavers are 10-13 (4-8 HCAC) on the season while Transy posts a 13-8 (7-5 HCAC) mark.
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