By Andy Amey
SULLIVAN — In his last high school basketball appearance in the Sullivan gym Friday, Dreyson Boyd made sure he and his Golden Arrows completed an unbeaten run through the Western Indiana Conference with a 59-54 win over South Vermillion.
But nothing Boyd or any of his teammates accomplished was enough to discourage the Wildcats from their next game — against the Golden Arrows again on Wednesday at the Class 3A Owen Valley Sectional.
Friday’s game, a closer one than the two teams played against each other in late December at the Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic, featured five ties and three lead changes in the first half, one fourth-quarter South Vermillion rally snuffed by back-to-back baskets from Boyd, and came down to one long possession in the final 37.8 seconds of the game with the Arrows leading 56-54.
Rhett Smith of Sullivan rejected South Vermillion’s first attempt to tie the game, his seventh blocked shot of the game, but the ball went out of bounds to the Wildcats. South Vermillion went inside again, but was whistled for a traveling call with 13.5 seconds left, and Boyd wrapped up the game with three free throws in the final 7.7 seconds.
Boyd finished with a game-high 26 points for the winners, while Smith had 17 points and six rebounds in addition to his blocked shots and David Bedwell had eight assists.
Patrick Harpenau led South Vermillion with 20 points, six rebounds and even a game-high nine assists, while Andy Walsh had 14 points and a game-high nine rebounds and Dylan Reyher scored 10.
Sullivan led 25-24 at halftime and opened the first real daylight of the game in the first two minutes of the third quarter. Smith scored inside, then got an assist on a layup by James Lisman. And Bedwell stole the in-bounds pass after Lisman’s basket and passed it to Boyd for a three-point play and a sudden 32-24 lead.
“I thought maybe we were going to finish [the Wildcats] out [at that point],” coach Jeff Moore of Sullivan said after the game, “but they’re a senior ballclub and they’re not going to go away … their kids play so hard you can’t do that to them very often.”
South Vermillion’s comeback started midway through the third quarter, when the Wildcats jumped into a full-court press and Reyher stopped three straight Sullivan possessions by stealing the ball twice in a row, then drawing a charging foul. When Harpenau hit a turnaround jumper in the lane at the third-quarter buzzer, the lead had been cut to 46-43.
The Wildcats started the fourth quarter with a four-guard spread offense, but the Arrows scored first when Caleb Turner got a deflection — his fourth steal of the game — and Bedwell made a full-speed, behind-the-back dribble on his way to a spectacular layup.
South Vermillion hit six free throws in a row, taking the lead 49-48 on two by Harpenau with 4:03 left. But Boyd restored order for the home team, first working his way free for a short jumper and then getting a layup on a perfectly executed in-bounds play from Bedwell. Sullivan led the rest of the way, although a basket by Harpenau in the final minute cut the lead to 56-54 and the Arrows missed a one-and-one opportunity to set up the Wildcats’ chances to tie or take the lead.
“[The Arrows] beat us twice, and the kids have got a really bad taste in their mouths,” coach Rodney Idlewine of the Wildcats said afterward. “They’re definitely going to be hungry [for Wednesday night].”
The second-half comeback, he added, was “a credit to our kids. We have a group of seniors who were not going to give up; they were going to compete the entire game … we just didn’t get enough stops or make enough shots.”
It was Sullivan’s first WIC championship since the 24-3 Golden Arrows swept the league during the 2000-2001 season.
“My hat’s off to them. They’re a good team,” Idlewine said.
South Vermillion 54
Player fg 3pt ft r s pf tp
Walsh 7-10 0-1 0-0 9 0 2 14
Pa.Harpenau 8-18 0-3 4-4 6 1 2 20
Hastings 1-2 0-0 0-0 4 0 3 2
Laswell 0-5 0-3 0-0 1 2 1 0
Mumaw 2-8 2-5 0-0 2 1 2 6
Reyher 3-5 2-4 2-2 3 2 1 10
Craigmyle 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0 2 0
Ph.Harpenau 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 1 0
Chambers 1-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 1 2
Totals 22-49 4-16 6-6 *28 6 15 54
Sullivan 59
Player fg 3pt ft r s pf tp
Turner 1-2 0-0 1-3 3 4 1 3
Lisman 2-3 0-0 2-4 3 0 1 6
Smith 5-7 0-0 7-8 6 2 3 17
Boyd 8-18 4-13 6-7 4 2 0 26
Bedwell 3-6 1-1 0-0 2 1 4 7
Pirtle 0-2 0-2 0-2 0 0 1 0
Ellett 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 1 0
Totals 19-38 5-16 16-24 *26 10 11 59
South Vermillion 12 12 19 11 — 54
Sullivan 12 13 21 13 — 59
FG Pct. — SV .449, Sullivan .500. 3-pt FG Pct. — SV .250, Sullivan .313. FT Pct. — SV 1.000, Sullivan .667. (*) Includes team rebounds — SV 2, Sullivan 8. Turnovers — SV 15, Sullivan 14. Assists — SV 19 (Pa.Harpenau 9), Sullivan 15 (Bedwell 8). Blocks — SV 1 (Pa.Harpenau), Sullivan 7 (Smith 7).
JV — South Vermillion 45 (Brad Chambers 16), Sullivan 41 (Gavan Marx 10).
Next — Sullivan (20-2, 6-0 in Western Indiana Conference) and South Vermillion (13-9, 3-3) play each other Wednesday in the second game that night at the Class 3A Owen Valley Sectional.
