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Versailles senior Kyle Ahrens is helped up from the floor Friday after
the Tigers fell to Delphos St. Johns,
57-55 in MAC play. Ahrens, with
less than a second on the clock, heaved one from the other side of the
half-court stripe that rimmed in and then out. CNO Photo by Dylan Knoop
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Versailles
falls to Delphos on senior night
By George Starks
VERSAILLES- With two seconds left in regulation, the Versailles Tigers
needed a miracle.
Down by two, 57-55 to Delphos St. Johns and Blue Jays senior Tyler
Conley at the stripe for one shot, Conley bricked it.
Versailles had one last chance.
With the ball just short of the mid-court stripe, senior Kyle Ahrens
launched a prayer at the buzzer that looked to be on target.
The ball came off the glass, hit the front of the rim and came out,
only to hit the floor.
When the ball hit the floor, Ahrens, exhausted, hit the floor as well.
The game was over and so was the Tigers home game winning streak.
To make matters worse, it was the final home game of the season and the
seniors would eventually be denied that senior night victory.
It’s a shame and it hurts on senior night but we’ve got to learn from
it,” said Versailles coach Scott McEldowney. “Here we are on the cusp
of the tournament and it hurts even worse. Great competition exploits
things that you need to touch-up and you need to work on.”
It was a night when leads for Versailles were few and far between.
Trailing 13-11 after one, the Tigers were never really out of a game
they were never really in.
Trailing throughout the second quarter, Versailles, on the strength of
a trey by senior Jace Barga with six second left in the half, took a
26-25 lead at the break but would trail after three, 39-36.
“I thought mentally and defensively we weren’t quite there early on
tonight,” admitted McEldowney. “I preach defense, defense, defense and
I knew execution offense was the key to the game because we turned the
ball over too many times that led to easy buckets for them. When you
get a team that’s solid and skilled like they are, it’s tough to speed
them up. We’re going to play team that are like that in the tournament
and we won’t be able to speed them up. We’ve been this way at times
this year and tonight we were willing to just swap baskets and you
can’t do that against teams like this.”
When the final eight minutes commenced, Versailles pushed every step of
the way.
Closing to a 52-50 count with 3:37 remaining as senior Kyle
Rutschilling drilled a trey, the Blue Jays had the answer at every turn.
Delphos would go up by as much as five (55-50) with 3:12 showing as
Austin Heling hit.
Versailles would close to 56-54 with 1:17 remaining as Ahrens would hit
both ends of a one and one.
Ahrens would see a huge opportunity slip through his hands with 46.9
seconds remaining.
Looking at a two shot opportunity, Ahrens, a master from the foul line,
split the par and the Tigers trailed 56-55.
That would be as close as Versailles would get as the Tigers would fall
to 14-4 on the season and 5-3 in the Midwest Athletic Conference.
Versailles will close out the season next week on the road against
Minster and Greenville Saturday.
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