By Mike Myers, Sports Writer
VINCENNES – After picking up their first win ever at Alice Arena two years ago, the home of the Vincennes Lincoln Alices turned into a house of horrors once again for Washington on Friday as the Hatchets saw an eight-point halftime lead disappear in a 57-55 Big 8 Conference loss.
Jantzen Goodwin’s rebound basket following a miss by Nick Heinz with fourth tenths of a second on the clock broke a seven-game losing streak for Vincennes against Washington in the state’s oldest rivalry.
Goodwin’s heroics, which gave the sophomore guard a team high 15 points for Vincennes (10-4, 4-2) in the win over Class 3A No. 4 Washington (14-2, 3-2) was just the last act of a second half drama in which the Hatchets were simply outplayed according to Hatchet coach Gene Miiller.
“They were the better basketball team tonight, that’s what I told the kids after the game. They outplayed us in every facet of the game,” said Miiller. “We got off to a fast start, but the second half, we were nonexistent, we had nothing going. We couldn’t guard them, we couldn’t score, and they got every rebound.”
Washington had as much as an 11-point lead in the first half and fronted 33-25 at the half. But the Alices, who got 13 points from Matt McCoy, chipped away at the lead the entire second half. Lincoln trailed by four at 46-42 after three quarters, and took the lead at 52-50 on a bucket by Goodwin with 2:37 to play. Cody Zeller, who led all scorers with 20 points, tied the score at 52-52, and a conventional 3-point play from Ethan Hunsinger put WHS back up by three with 1:23 left.
But McCoy dialed long distance on the Alices’ next possession to tie the score with :52 on the clock. The Hatchets misfired on their next possession with :26 to play, setting up Goodwin’s game winner.
The Hatchets limited Lincoln’s top scoring threat, Kyle Tucker, to just 10 points, but Goodwin and McCoy took the up the slack. Vincennes also benefitted from eight offensive rebounds as the Alices outrebounded WHS 19-15.
“We held Tucker to 10 points, he was averaging 19 coming into the game,” said Miiller. “But the one’s that killed us were Goodwin and McCoy, especially the second half.”
Zeller finished with 13 rebounds for WHS, and helped he and brothers Luke and Tyler reach a family milestone with a bucket early in the second half. With his ninth and 10th points of the game, Zeller reached 650 for his career which, when added in with the career totals for Luke (1,727) and Tyler (1,624) put the Zeller brothers over 4,000 points as a group. But that was little consolation for the large Hatchet crowd on hand as Washington no longer controls its own destiny in the Big 8 Conference. Sam Gines added 14 points and seven assists for the Hatchets.
In the JV game, Washington fell to the Alices 43-40 in overtime. Matt McClain led WHS with 21 points, followed by Adam Lane with 13.
