Rarely does Trayce Jackson-Davis display a ton of emotion on the basketball court. But when the Center Grove senior took the sectional championship trophy in his hands on Saturday night, he couldn’t help himself.
The yell that Jackson-Davis let out may have been brought on as much by relief as it was joy after the host Trojans needed overtime to escape with a 29-28 victory over a Franklin team that did everything it needed to do to pull the upset except for scoring one more basket.
"Props to Franklin," Jackson-Davis said. "They gave us the biggest fight that we’ve had the whole season; all the respect to them, honestly. We fought really hard, and our defense really just helped us. … I’m just so happy that we pulled that one out, because it could have gone either way."
Center Grove (19-8) will face Jasper in the 10 a.m. semifinal at the Class 4A Seymour Regional.
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Jackson-Davis scored 25 points, including his team’s final 18 in the second half and overtime. His baseline dunk with 1:47 left in the extra period proved to be the game-winner, but the Grizzly Cubs had a few chances to pull it out after that score.
Center Grove — which made just 1 of 9 free throws on the night — left a window open by missing the front end of three different one-and-ones in the last 1:14 of overtime. On the last of those misses, Franklin looked like it was going to get a look at the win when Cody Mahler found a lane to the basket with time running down, but he appeared to be tripped up and couldn’t gather the ball in time to get a shot up.
"I’ve been waiting for a real gutsy performance since I’ve been here," Center Grove coach Zach Hahn said of his club. "That’s as gutsy of a win as I’ve ever been a part of."
The Grizzly Cubs (19-8) had also had an opportunity to win it in regulation with the score tied at 25-25, but Drew Byerly’s foul-line jumper bounced off the rim with about a second remaining.
Much like Greenwood and Franklin Central before them, the Grizzly Cubs chose to play a more deliberate style on the offensive end, but with a small twist. On most trips, Franklin had its forwards out on top handling the ball, pulling Center Grove’s big men away from the basket in an effort to open the lane up.
The strategy paid dividends. The Grizzly Cubs pulled ahead late in the first quarter, 4-3, on a back-door pass from Reece Thomson to Blaine Wentzell, and slowly built on that edge for the rest of the half.
Cory Richards wound up doing much of the damage, scoring nine of Franklin’s 11 second-quarter points to help his squad go into the intermission with a 17-9 advantage.
"We felt we had an advantage in the post on their guards," Richards said, "so bringing their bigs out was huge for us. That was a big game plan for us."
Center Grove made some changes defensively and outscored the Grizzly Cubs 8-2 over the first six minutes of the third quarter to get within a bucket, and Jackson-Davis opened the fourth with back-to-back scores to put the Trojans up, 23-22, with 6:22 remaining.
Richards and Jackson-Davis then exchanged baskets before a Byerly free throw at the 2:15 mark evened it back up.
Hahn talked about the adjustments his team made at the defensive end at halftime to get itself back in the game.
"We just decided man-to-man wasn’t the way to go," he said. "We tried to keep Trayce around the basket, obviously, and our guys were just out kind of trapping, pressuring, making it tough on passes, looking for deflections and steals, trying to play gaps."
Richards, who will play football at Ball State in the fall, finished with 13 points to lead the Grizzly Cubs.
For Center Grove, the win meant three consecutive sectional championships for the first time in school history.
"It’s important for the community," Hahn said of that achievement. "It’s important for them to understand that this is a basketball school, and these kids have earned the right for people to come support them and believe in what they’re doing."
