GREENFIELD — One great half couldn’t override the other team’s full game.
Greenfield-Central trailed by as much as 15 points, got the deficit down to two and had the basketball with under 30 seconds to play, but couldn’t complete the comeback.
The Cougars dropped a key Hoosier Heritage Conference game, 56-51, to New Castle at Greenfield-Central High School, Friday.
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Coming into Friday’s games, six HHC teams had one loss or less in league play, including the Cougars and Trojans. Greenfield-Central dropped to 2-2 in the HHC and 4-7 overall. New Castle is 3-1 in the conference and improved to 8-4.
“We fought back in the second half, but basketball is a game of 32 minutes,” Greenfield-Central senior Brady Mundell said. “New Castle played 32 minutes. We out-played them in the second half, but they out-played us for the whole game.”
The Cougars struggled shooting in the first half, hitting only 6 of 23 field goal attempts (26 percent), including just 2 of 13 (15 percent) from three-point range.
New Castle hit 5 of 10 first-half three-pointers and made 7 of 12 field goal attempts (58.3 attempts) in the first quarter.
G-C trailed by 15 twice, 28-13 late in the second quarter and 30-15 early in the third.
“If you would have asked me, when we were down 15, would you take a shot with the ball down two with Jake Cochran going left, absolutely,” Greenfield-Central coach Luke Meredith said. “I just told our guys, we have to bring it. (The second half) is our standard of play all the time. If we don’t play that hard all the time, we are going to get beat, especially against a conference foe and a good program like New Castle.”
With New Castle leading 53-51 with just under 30 second remaining, Cochran, who was one of the comeback leaders with 12 of his 14 points in the second half, wasn’t able to get his drive to the basket to fall. New Castle rebounded and Derek Tabor, who only played in the fourth quarter, hit two free throws to up the Trojans lead to four.
“I thought we let us not hitting shots effect how hard we played (in the first half),” Meredith added. “We’re not hitting shots, fine, but we have to get out and guard. We were in desperation mode picking up fullcourt man-to-man. That’s not who we are, but it did force us to play harder and it got us a couple steals.”
Greenfield-Central started chopping away in the fourth quarter, thanks to the pressure.
Brady Mundell hit a three-pointer after a New Castle turnover to cut it to 51-47 with 2:42 to go. He hit a couple of free throws at the 2:16 mark to, again, knock it down to two, 51-49.
A Cochran drive and bucket with 52.6 seconds to go made it 53-51.
Caleb Mundell led all scorers with 18 points. Brady Mundell had 11.
William Grieser led New Castle with 16. Cole McDaniel added 14 and Trey Miller scored 12.
“They just made more plays down the stretch,” Meredith said of the Trojans. “Our guys battled and competed. It was too little, too late. If we played another quarter, I think we get them.”
Greenfield-Central is back in action tonight with a home contest against Lapel.
