Union County’s Preston Scott scored 12 points during the regional on March 10. Photo by Ryan Tincher.
GREENFIELD, Ind. – The magic for the Union County boys basketball team ended on Saturday.
“Unfortunately in the tournament, there’s only going to be one team happy at the end of this thing,” Union County Head Coach Jesse Moses said.
The Patriots would not become that happy team as they fell 56-42 to Indianapolis Scecina in the opener of the Class 2A regional at Greenfield-Central.
“They were better than us today,” said senior Cameron Donovan.
Union County finishes the season at 20-7 overall with a sectional title, while also sharing the Tri-Eastern Conference championship with Hagerstown.
“You don’t get many special years like that,” Moses said. “They’ve earned every bit of it.”
A fast start gave Union County a 10-0 in the first four minutes of the opening period.
“There’s no stage too big for them,” Moses said. “That’s just their approach.”
“We have a confident group of guys,” Moses continued. “They wanted this. They were locked in all week. I wasn’t surprised they came out on fire.”
It took the rest of the period, but the Crusaders recovered to close the gap to 11-10 thanks to the performance of Manual Brown. He scored all 10 points in the frame for his team, including a 3-pointer at the buzzer.
The game was tied three times in the second quarter before the Patriots grabbed a 20-17 advantage with Preston Scott drilled a 3-pointer with 2:56 left.
However, Brown wasn’t finished as he scored five straight points to help put the Crusaders on top 24-21 at the intermission.
After falling behind 26-21 at the beginning of the third, Union County responded to tie the contest at 26-26 when Mason Miller nailed a 3-pointer at the 5:50 mark.
By the end of the third, Scecina was in front 39-30.
“We kept our cool, kept our composure, kept grinding and fighting back,” Moses said.
The Patriots scored six points in a row to cut the deficit to 39-36 capped by Scott as he hit a pair of free throws with 6:03 remaining.
“We gave them all they could handle,” Moses said. “We had a couple of chances to hit a bucket to tie the game. We just couldn’t quite get over the hump.”
Union County couldn’t get any closer the rest of they way as the Crusaders (18-9) gained an edge the Patriots couldn’t overcome.
Donovan led the Patriots with 13 points as he pulled down six rebounds.
Scott tossed in 12 points, while Miller had nine points and a team-high seven rebounds.
Trevor Reiboldt contributed four points with Cameron Sanford and Derek Dearth adding two each.
Brown finished with a game-high 28 points with seven treys.
“It’s not like he was hitting wide open threes,” Moses said. “Sometimes you just tip your cap.”
“I thought our guys did a good job even after a couple of big shots by him,” Moses added.
Kobe Clancy had 13 points for the Crusaders and Cobie Dillard had seven points with five rebounds.