<p>In the blink of an eye, it felt like it was over.</p><p>Host Franklin had been able to keep Tuesday night’s Johnson County boys basketball tournament game against Greenwood Christian reasonably close for much of the second quarter, shaking off an early slump and getting to within five points with three and a half minutes left in the half — but then Styles McCorkle happened.</p><p>The junior scored 11 points in a 3:13 stretch, including a dunk and a buzzer-beating 3 just before the break, helping the Class A No. 2 Cougars get the breathing room they needed on the way to a 62-44 victory over the Grizzly Cubs.</p><p>"When I get rolling, I feel like there’s nothing that can stop me," McCorkle said, "and not only does it open up more for me, but it opens up more for my teammates, and I feel like when someone on our team gets going, we’re almost indestructible.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery<p>"That two, three minutes at the end of the second quarter, it set the tone for the rest of the game. I bet they went into their locker room down on themselves, and we’re in here clapping, high-fiving, yelling, because we’re hype about everything, and we know we can keep doing that."</p><p>GCA (11-0) will face Greenwood in a 6 p.m. semifinal at Franklin on Friday. The Cougars defeated the Woodmen, 45-34, in the teams’ season opener on Nov. 30.</p><p>McCorkle scored 16 of his game-high 18 points in the second quarter overall but really found his stroke late in the period, hitting a pair of 3s to help the Cougars build the lead back to 11 points after the Grizzly Cubs (4-6) had used a steady diet of free throws to creep back to within five at 21-16. He then came up with a steal and a dunk with 55 seconds on the clock, and after a Champ McCorkle basket and another turnover, Styles knocked down an open 3 from the top of the key just before the horn.</p><p>That stretch changed the entire feel of the game.</p><p>"Momentum is something that you can’t tangibly see, but you can definitely feel it," GCA coach Johnny Marlin said. "I thought the last two minutes of the first half gave us some momentum going into halftime, so that was big. Good teams close out quarters and halves really well, and that’s not something that we’ve not always done well this season, but it’s something that we’re striving for."</p><p>Franklin used an 8-0 run early in the third to get the deficit back to 10, but never got it to single digits. Struggles from the foul line — the Grizzly Cubs were 11 of 25 from the stripe, including just 3 of 13 in the second half — helped prevent the home team from sustaining any momentum.</p><p>The Cougars grabbed the upper hand right away, forcing turnovers on Franklin’s first four possessions and getting back-to-back 3-pointers from Derek Petersen and Evan Stinnett to take a quick 6-0 lead. Champ McCorkle added seven of his 17 points in the opening quarter as GCA took a 13-5 lead that it never surrendered.</p><p>"I think it started with us being active on defense," Marlin said. "We had guys get a lot of deflections, and once you get a lot of deflections, that just disrupts them — and once you get stops, you’re able to get out in transition."</p><p>Andrew Anderson added 12 points for the Cougars, all in the second half. Will McLaughlin and Damon Dickey had 13 and 12 points, respectively, to lead the Grizzly Cubs.</p><p>"We actually accomplished several things," Franklin coach Brad Dickey said, "but none of those things were on the scoreboard. Too many turnovers and obviously the low shooting percentage against a really good team. … We’re getting a few things right and too many things wrong."</p>
