Bearcat hoopsters fall short in season opener

Friday’s season opener against the visiting Crandall Pirates didn’t go the way the Aledo Bearcats hoped.  

Drew Clock knocked down a last-second three-pointer as time expired, but was unable to draw a foul as the Pirate defenders played the final possession of the game with their hands behind their backs en route to a 55-54 upset over the hosting Bearcats.

“I thought we played really hard,” Aledo head coach JD Robinson commented after the game.  “We’ve got a lot of guys out there that have never done this before. This is a good game for us to play. Crandall’s a tough team. We had to defend a 6-8 kid down in the post that we’re not used to doing in practice. We’re just going to have to get a lot tougher. We’re going to have to grow up a lot quicker than what we thought we needed to.”

Aledo used a pair of back-to-back three-pointers by Brandon Fields and Jack Sawyer to take an early 6-3 lead less than two minutes into the game. Though the Bearcats were never able to put much distance between themselves and the visiting Pirates, they did maintain the lead throughout much of the contest.  

It wasn’t until the 4:12 mark midway through the fourth quarter when Ethan Ortega dialed up a long distance three that Crandall sprung ahead of the Bearcats for the first time since the early moments of the contest. As with the rest of the game, the score remained close from then on. However, as the final minutes of the game melted away, it was the Pirates who held a paper-thin advantage.  

With the game close in what had remained a highly contentious affair throughout, a moment of high drama ensued with just four seconds remaining in the game and Crandall in the bonus. Down by two, the Bearcats were forced to foul in hopes of regaining possession for one last-ditch effort to steal the game from the Pirates. Clock rushed to foul Crandall’s Marlon Linton, Jr.  

Linton took exception to the play, returning the foul with a shove of his own. Clock responded in kind with a chest bump before the referees quickly separated the two players. A double technical was issued canceling out the need for free throws, leaving Linton to shoot the one-and-one for the foul.

Linton knocked down both ends of the one-and-one to put Crandall up by four, 55-51, with just four seconds left in regulation.

Needing a three-pointer plus a foul to have any hope of tying the game and forcing overtime, Clock took the inbound pass quickly down the floor. His last-ditch effort from behind the arch fired true to popped the twine just as the final buzzer sounded. With no foul call on the play, however, the Pirates held on to take the win in the season opener.

“We’re going to have to be a lot tougher defensively,” Robinson said while reflecting on the physicality of the game. “The guys have been working really hard ever since the spring and coming into the summer. They’re working hard in the weight room. They’re working hard on their bodies and their conditioning. We’ve just got a long way to go and a short time to get there.”

In spite of a high degree of physical play, especially in the paint, the officials allowed the two teams to play through most of it unfettered by foul calls.  

“It was great for us,” Robinson said. “We need that environment. We need to be able to play through that contact. You can’t really simulate what we got against Crandall in our practices. That physicality is great for us. District basketball games are going to be really physical; they’re going to be strong. We’ve just got to do a good job of matching that intensity in a smart way.”

Part of handling the physical play is making free throws when those opportunities come. In the season opener, the Bearcats were just 50 percent from the stripe, knocking down seven of their 14 attempts.  

Clock led the Bearcats in scoring in the opener with 15 points. Sawyer finished the game with 13 points.  Brandon Fields added another 10 to round out the scoring leaders for Aledo.

The Bearcats will be in action for game two of the 2022-23 season on Friday when they host the 0-0 Weatherford’s Kangaroos at 7:30 pm. 

Bearcat JV Edges Crandall

Following a slow start to the action for Aledo’s JV hoopsters, the squad managed to find their groove in the second quarter to take the season opener against Crandall’s junior varsity team, 42-40.  

Aledo began play struggling to find the bucket, allowing the visiting Pirates to jump out to a 9-3 advantage early. The Bearcats added 14 points in the second quarter to take a slight advantage heading into the break at 17-16. From there, they didn’t look back as they held on to seal the game by a bucket.

Zayden Parker led the Bearcats in scoring with 11. Owen Peterson and Brett Barclay cashed in with eight points each. Joaquin Pacheco added seven of his own while Anthony Calderon tacked on five more to Aledo’s total. Brox Uhlmer rounded out the offense for the Bearcats with three points.

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