Greenwood Christian coach Jackson Williams talks to his team before the start of Tuesday’s sectional game against Tindley.
Rob Baker | For the Daily Journal
INDIANAPOLIS
Two months in, 2023 continues to take a liking to Greenwood Christian.
The Class A No. 5 Cougars, 53-47 overtime winners over Tindley in a wild first-round game Tuesday night, take a 12-game win streak into Friday’s second semifinal against Victory College Prep (3-18).
Junior guard Max Booher led all scorers with 24 points for the Cougars (18-6), while senior wing Blake Shewmaker added 17.
Greenwood Christian needed every one of those points to finally shake free from the Tigers. The game offered 16 occasions in which the score was either tied or the point spread a single point — and that was in regulation alone.
From late in the fourth quarter and all the way through the extra session, the howling capacity crowd of approximately 1,000 fans refused to be seated.
“I think we were pretty well prepared for how good and how talented Tindley is,” Cougars coach Jackson Williams said. “We knew this one was going to be a nail-biter and come down to the wire.
“We were shooting free throws all week knowing we were going to have to hit some down the stretch. We had to take care of the basketball, and really focus in on getting stops, and I thought the kids did a good job of doing that.”
GCA led 42-40 when Shewmaker missed the front end of a one-and-bonus with 16 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. Tindley coach Omar Dillard signaled timeout at 10.3, but the Cougars countered with fouls at the 8.9 and 6.9 marks to push the Tigers closer to the bonus themselves.
Finally, with 4.9 seconds remaining, freshman guard DeZhon Hall was sent to the free throw stripe. He missed, but junior teammate Adonis Warfield hustled to grab the offensive board and flip in a short shot right before the buzzer.
The Cougars could have — perhaps even should have — been deflated, but weren’t.
“They were upset that that happened, but it was kind of a next-play mentality with all our kids,” Williams said. “We sat in there in our huddle, and just kind of said, we’ve got this. We’ve been here before. Let’s take care of business. And I thought the kids did a great job coming out in overtime and responding.”
Greenwood Christian finished the game making 15 of 18 free throws; Booher was 7 of 8 and Shewmaker 2 of 2 in the final 1:34 of overtime to finally create some separation on the scoreboard.
A defensive-oriented first half came to an end with Hall connecting on a 3-pointer from the top of the key at the horn to give his team a 17-15 halftime advantage.
Despite the low score, there were five lead changes prior to intermission with six points being the largest advantage.
GCA senior Ian Reed sent his team’s fans into a frenzy when he got control of the basketball after a Tindley turnover and banked in a half-court shot to end the first period for a 10-7 Cougars lead.
Booher splashed a triple from just left of the key at 5:22 of the second quarter for a 13-7 cushion. The Tigers responded with a 7-0 scoring run, one benefited by Greenwood Christian turning the ball over five times in the second stanza.
