Box Score The Neosho County Panthers have struggled both on the road and in the second half of ball games this season. Saturday evening (Feb. 23) the Panthers overcame those struggles and picked up a come from behind win on the road.
The Cavaliers jumped out to a quick lead and extended it to 9 at 17-8 with 13:17 left in the first on a three from Christian Hildebrandt. Neosho County began to chip away at the Johnson County lead. The Panthers would come all the way back and take a four point lead only to see Johnson respond and regain the lead.
D'Marco Smith's three from the corner with 1 second left in the half tied it up at 34.
Johnson County started the second half on a 12-3 run to take a 7 point lead early in the second half. Once again Neosho County would battle back and go on a 16-4 run to take a 5 point lead right before the second half media timeout.
The Panthers would not give up the lead and would push it out to as many as 8 points with 3 minutes to play on a jumper from
D'Marco Smith. The Cavaliers would not go down without a fight. A late 5-0 run would cut the Panther lead to 3 with 1:21 to play but a jumper from
D'Avonte Garland would extend it back to 5. A made free throw with 5 seconds left got Johnson within 4 but a long inbounds pass over the top allowed Garldand to dribble out the final 5 seconds and secure the Panthers first conference road win of the season.
The Panthers only go to the free throw line 10 times in the game compared to 26 for Johnson County. Neosho County was a perfect 8-8 from the line in the second half to help put the game away.
Garland tied his career high of 19 point to lead the Panthers to go with 4 rebounds and a team high 3 steals.
Jake Stoppel finished with 13 points and 8 rebounds while
D'Marco Smith and
Jamie Batish joined them in double figures with 11 and 10 points respectively.
The Panthers improve to 11-17 overall and 4-12 in KJCCC play. They will be back in action Monday (Feb. 25) when they travel to Cowley for a makeup game. The game was originally scheduled for February 20 but was forced to be rescheduled due to the winter storm. Game time for Monday is set for 4:00 pm to try and beat the latest storm forecasted to hit the area.
