Clarksdale High School was dominant in the early part of the game at home against Cleveland Central Friday night.
The Wildcats led the majority of the way until Cleveland tied things up in the final seconds of the fourth quarter.
That was when Clarksdale senior Aikee Matthews stepped up and made a free throw to break the tie and give the Wildcats a 46-45 victory.
Matthews missed the first of two foul shots before making the one that mattered. He also missed a one-and-one earlier in the quarter, but he came through from the line when it mattered most.
“That’s senior leadership,” Clarksdale coach Farrington Hill said. “He’s one of those guys that’s been with me for four years so I’m looking for leadership from him, Kevin Smith and Chris Allen. Those are my three leaders and the ones I look for the leadership from.”
Matthews finished the night with 12 points.
The Wildcats jumped out to an early 17-8 lead before Cleveland slowly came back.
“A little disappointed,” Hill said. “Free throws is an Achilles heel for us. As you witnessed, we could have sealed the game, but missing free throws (was costly).
“That’s something we’ve been working on a whole lot and we’re going to continue to work on, but it’s Clarksdale High School was dominant in the early part of the game at home against Cleveland Central Friday night.
The Wildcats led the majority of the way until Cleveland tied things up in the final seconds of the fourth quarter.
That was when Clarksdale senior Aikee Matthews stepped up and made a free throw to break the tie and give the Wildcats a 46-45 victory.
Matthews missed the first of two foul shots before making the one that mattered. He also missed a one-and-one earlier in the quarter, but he came through from the line when it mattered most.
“That’s senior leadership,” Clarksdale coach Farrington Hill said. “He’s one of those guys that’s been with me for four years so I’m looking for leadership from him, Kevin Smith and Chris Allen. Those are my three leaders and the ones I look for the leadership from.”
Matthews finished the night with 12 points.
The Wildcats jumped out to an early 17-8 lead before Cleveland slowly came back.
“A little disappointed,” Hill said. “Free throws is an Achilles heel for us. As you witnessed, we could have sealed the game, but missing free throws (was costly).
“That’s something we’ve been working on a whole lot and we’re going to continue to work on, but it’s also a positive to win a close game like that because, if we want to make a run in the playoffs, I’m quite sure there’s going to be games like this. To be able to win a few games like that, the crowd loud, they had the momentum and to be able to pull it out, that’s a learning experience for us. I’m happy about it, celebrate it for a few minutes.”
Markevious Jackson had 15 points for Clarksdale, Dave Wilson had four, Allen had 12 with six of them coming in the fourth quarter, and Robert Cochran had four.
“We shot the ball a little bit better than we did in the second half,” Hill said. “We made a couple of dumb mistakes, too.”
As Cleveland came back, Hill said the Wildcats defense became lax and had five straight fouls called against them.
“We couldn’t get up in them like we did the first half,” Hill said. “We disrupted the flow of the offense (on defense). We took off 10 points because we were able to get turnovers out of transition buckets. With the foul calls, we couldn’t get up in them like we wanted, play aggressive like we wanted to. That was the major thing. The foul calls kind of kept our defense at bay.”
Hill said a couple of his athletes are ineligible for academic reasons.
“We’re going to be a lot better when I get them back because it’s academics first,” Hill said.
The Wildcats also lost at Greenville High School 71-56 on Dec. 4.
Jackson had 18 points for Clarksdale, Allen had 11, DeShannon Burnett had seven, Aikee Matthews had seven, and Josh Hollins had six.
It was the same story with free throws after the loss.
“Our biggest thing is free throws,” Hill said. “Every game we had and lost, we missed at least 15 free throws or more. Two games we missed 15 free throws. One game we missed 16. Another one we missed 18 free throws. Another we missed 20. Another game we missed 22 free throws. So you know it’s free throws.”
Freshmen Jackson and Devontae Halbert are expected to be two of the strongest players as the year progresses, according to Hill.
The Lady Wildcats lost 53-33 to Cleveland Central with Amyiah Fizer leading the way with 17 points.
Clarksdale is at West Bolivar at 6 p.m. Friday.
