Franklin’s Micah Davis gets a shot off under the basket as Whiteland’s Wiatt McLaughlin tries to defend.
Rob Baker | For the Daily Journal
When Franklin lost its glue, senior guard Wyatt Nickleson, to an ankle injury early in the third quarter on Friday night, it could have easily come undone.
Instead, the Grizzly Cubs responded to that moment by displaying the type of resolve that defines championship teams. It just took a while for them to finish the job.
Micah Davis delivered 27 of his game-high 36 points after halftime, including an ice-in-the-veins 3-pointer with one second left in overtime that lifted host Franklin to a 58-55 victory over county and Mid-State Conference rival Whiteland.
With the win, the Grizzly Cubs (11-2, 4-0) avenged a 67-64 loss to the Warriors in the first round of the Johnson County tournament last week.
“Wyatt’s our dude, you know?” Franklin coach Adrian Moss said of Nickleson. “Wyatt’s an assistant coach. I’m at halftime pulling Wyatt over like, ‘Hey, what do you think about this?’ He’s our dude. He’s put so much into this program, and everybody knows that, so I think it was kind of the mentality of, ‘We’re not going to let Wyatt down.’”
Davis hit a 3-pointer with 2:58 left in OT to put Franklin up 53-50, then forced a turnover and followed with another jumper to make it a five-point game. The Warriors crept back to tie it with a jumper from Jazz Banwait, a free throw by Wiatt McLaughlin and two more from Gavin Stubbe with 29.1 seconds on the clock.
Not surprisingly, Franklin put the ball in Davis’ hands down the stretch, and the likely Indiana All-Star delivered. He dribbled the clock down to about four seconds, made a move to get separation and pulled up from 23 feet, drilling it and sending the Grizzly Cub student section spilling onto the floor as the buzzer sounded.
“I just wanted to end the game,” Davis said. “That’s what big players do, and it was time for me to step up as that.”
Officials put 1.1 seconds on the clock, but Whiteland (10-7, 2-2) threw the ball away and Franklin ran off the remaining time.
The opening quarter was played at a fairly deliberate pace, with both sides feeling each other out. Franklin crept out to a 7-2 lead but the Warriors remained within striking distance, getting back within two on three different occasions before Davis ended the period with a driving layup to make it 13-9.
Whiteland used its 3-point shooting, including a pair of makes by Ethan Edwards, to stay in range through the second quarter, but the Grizzly Cubs maintained their advantage by repeatedly generating layups at the other end. Though it never pulled ahead by more than six, Franklin finished the half with a 24-20 edge.
Franklin was still up four when Nickleson drove to the basket and landed hard and awkwardly; he was helped off the floor with 6:39 to go in the third. Davis’ 3-pointer a few seconds later was answered by one from Stubbe, but Davis followed with three consecutive baskets to give the Grizzly Cubs their first double-digit lead, 35-25, with three and a half minutes to go in the period. Another Davis layup a minute later made it 39-28.
As was the case 10 days earlier, the Warriors were far from over. A McLaughlin basket and a Banwait 3 cut the deficit to 39-33 by the end of the third quarter, and after a three-point play from Banwait made it a two-point game midway through the fourth, Whiteland tied it up on a pair of Gavin Stubbe free throws with 2:42 remaining.
Davis followed up his own miss to put the home team back in front by a pair with 1:20 left. Banwait responded with a layup at the other end, however, and Davis missed a floater at the other end, giving the Warriors the ball back with 5.7 seconds on the clock.
McLaughlin, who led Whiteland with 14 points, got a clean look for the win as regulation time expired, but his runner from the right side was off the mark, putting another four minutes on the clock.
Banwait and Stubbe added 12 points each for Whiteland, with Edwards adding nine. Grant Hunter had nine points for Franklin.
