MINERAL WELLS – Leading by as many as 11 points in the fourth quarter, the Brownwood Lions’ cushion slipped to one point before head coach Jorden Young’s squad held on for their first District 6-4A victory, 58-56, Thursday night.
“I felt like we finally got the monkey off our back,” Young said. “To compete and get a district win on the road, it’s always a tough environment when you’re on the road in our district and for us to get a win was nice. Our kids played real hard and competed. The tenacity to be up 10, then there’s the big run, and then to hang in there to finish the ball game out, I’m real proud of what they did.”
Up 53-42, the Lions (11-14, 1-3) witnessed Mineral Wells (12-16, 0-4) trim the deficit to 57-56 with under a minute left. Judson Coalson then converted one of two free throws, and Carson Noe came through with a block near the buzzer to propel Brownwood to the victory.
“I felt good about where we were at the the end of the game, but the first thing I told them was if we were going to win this game we were going to have to defend,” Young said. “With one second left we had two guys corralling the ball and we got a stop there so that was huge there for them to buy into what we were doing today.”
The Lions – who halted a six-game skid with the victory – led 16-13 after one quarter, 32-23 at halftime, and 47-40 heading to the fourth period.
Cannon Calvert scored a team-high 17 points for Brownwood trailed by 11 from Durham Brown and 10 from Elias Perez. Also scoring for the Lions were Judson Coalson and Riggs Gray with seven points apiece, Carson Noe with four, and Grant Gray with two points.
“Cannon’s been our best scorer all year,” Young said. “Durham and Elias just haven’t been scoring well, so I brought them off the bench today to maybe give them a different look and a different level of comfort. I told them before the game starter or not you’re going to play a lot of minutes, you just have to understand you have to relax and play. We started a little bigger to focus on grabbing rebounds and Riggs Gray and Grant Gray really stepped up in big in small ways. It might not show up in the stat sheet, but being where they’re supposed to be and contesting shots and grabbing rebounds, I’m proud of those two as well.”
Mineral Wells received 13 points from Christian Peel and 10 from Logan Speiker.
The Lions are back in action at 7:15 p.m. Friday at Warren Gym as they host 6-4A front-runner Glen Rose (19-8, 3-0).
“They’ve beat Brock, they’ve beat Stephenville and they can shoot the lights out, that’s what they do best,” Young said. “We’re going to have to defend the three-point line and be ready for whatever they throw at us. I’m excited with where we’re at and hopefully we can take some confidence into tomorrow.”