<p>With 90 seconds left in regulation, John Shepard had scored just one point all night. But with his team on the brink of a loss to Edinburgh on Tuesday night, the Franklin sophomore decided to take charge.</p><p>Shepard scored eight of his team’s final 10 points, including a game-winning putback with 1.3 seconds left in overtime, to lift the Grizzly Cubs to a 62-61 triumph in the first round of the Johnson County tournament.</p><p>Franklin (4-5) will face Center Grove in the early semifinal on Friday at Greenwood.</p><p>"I really hadn’t done much most of the game," Shepard said, "and I like to help out the ball team. I needed to step it up and play my role."</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery<p>The Grizzly Cubs trailed by one after Noah Detling’s layup at the 1:18 mark of the extra period put the Lancers ahead for the last time. Carson Hunter’s jumper as the clock ran down was deflected, but Shepard was able to get the rebound and redirect it into the basket.</p><p>Edinburgh (10-3) had to go the length of the floor in the final second and couldn’t get a shot off.</p><p>"The very last shot, I just saw the ball and grabbed it and threw it up and wished it went in, and luckily it did," Shepard said.</p><p>The last-second shot capped a wild finish that saw the Grizzly Cubs rally from a seven-point deficit to take the lead, 55-54, on Shepard’s first basket of the night, a three-point play with 1:21 left in the fourth quarter. Caleb Dewey, who led Edinburgh with 19 points, answered with an and-one at the other end to put the Lancers back in front with 1:04 to go.</p><p>Hunter, who scored 13 of his game-high 21 in the fourth quarter, knocked down a contested jumper with 10.9 seconds on the clock to tie it at 59-59. Edinburgh had two shots to win it in the final seven seconds but couldn’t get either to fall.</p><p>The loss was a tough one to swallow for Edinburgh, which came in ranked seventh in Class A.</p><p>"We kind of lost focus defensively on what we needed to do," Lancers coach Keith Witty said, "what our job was on each particular person, and Franklin hit some tough shots there. We just didn’t have the same energy late in the game as what we had been having."</p><p>At the outset, it appeared that there wasn’t going to be much drama at all. The Lancers slapped the Grizzly Cubs in the face early, scoring the first 11 points of the game. Travis Jones scored six of those, operating seemingly at will in the paint as aggressive defense and good ball movement by Edinburgh created good shot opportunities.</p><p>Franklin settled down and whittled the deficit down to five on a couple of occasions, the last at 23-18 with a little more than two minutes to go in the half. But Detling knocked down a 3-pointer, and Dewey followed with a steal and a three-point play to get the lead back into double digits. The Lancers went into the break with a 29-22 edge.</p><p>"We’re a good transition team, so trying to get out and get going is what our goal was early, and I would say we did," Witty said.</p><p>The Grizzly Cubs chipped away, using five straight points from Damon Dickey (14 points) to get within a bucket, and eventually took their first lead, 35-34, on a Max Lancer putback with 3:27 left in the third quarter. Isaac Roberts, who scored 13 on the night, responded with a pair of baskets to put Edinburgh back on top going into the fourth.</p><p>The Lancers appeared to be in control after a 10-2 run, keyed by a Chase Littlejohn 3, put them back in front at 48-41 with five minutes remaining in regulation. But a three-point play and a 3-pointer from Hunter closed the gap again, and it was a seesaw affair the rest of the way, with Shepard getting the final word.</p><p>"We’re not smooth enough offensively to just drop it in there to (Shepard) and not get him double-teamed," Franklin coach Brad Dickey said. "It takes a little bit of movement and a little bit of chaos sometimes to break him loose, and I think that really helped."</p><p>Next up for Franklin is a rematch with the Trojans, who hammered the Grizzly Cubs 68-20 back on Dec. 12 before both teams went into quarantine.</p><p>Since returning to action, Franklin has won four of five.</p><p>"It’s really good for the boys," Shepard said. "We needed that to boost us up, and I think it helps a lot with how we act from here on out."</p>
