Marlin ISD

Hornet "Sting" Comes After Buzzer
As Marlin Beats Caldwell
63-60
In District Opener

Trailing by three and the clock ticking down the Caldwell Hornets looked for an open three as the Bulldog defense was in pursuit. Five, Four, Three, Two, One, Zero…. And then the ball was in the air and thru the basket for an apparent tying basket but the buzzer had sounded before the ball left the Hornet players hand and Marlin had taken their first district game 63-60.

Marlin controlled the opening tip off and moved down court where Bertram Knight missed a three for the first shot of the night with Jamarcus Hartsfield getting the rebound going back up and scoring to give the dogs a 2-0 lead. The lead would go to 13-9 with 2:30 to go before Caldwell scored 4 unanswered points to tie it with 36 seconds remaining in the opening quarter. Neither team mustered another basket nor we were tied at 13 after one. Kendrick Trotter led the dogs in scoring with 8 points in the quarter.

Moving onto the second period the Hornets outscored the dogs 15 to 12 to take a 3 point lead to the lockers at 28-25 Caldwell.

In the third period, it was all bulldogs as they lit up the scoreboard for 31 points and built a 17-point lead. Everyone was scoring - Threes! Knight had one, Travis Davis had one, Trotter with two and JaMarcus Hartsfield hit from the left, then the right and at the top of the key - 3 threes! It looked like they were ready to take the sting out of the Hornets completely.

But the Hornets answered back as they cut the 17-point lead to five with 5:29 to play. The dogs hit a dry spell connecting for only 2 points in 2 ½ minutes and those two came from the charity line. The Hornets weren't done yet, 2 more baskets cut it to one with just over 4 minutes to play. The bulldogs went into a slow down game to try and take some of the sting out of the Hornets. At the 2:44 mark Jameus Hartsfield was fouled and hit one of two from the line to make the score 61 - 58. Caldwell moved down the court put the ball up for a two, missed but the rebound was put back in and we were ahead by only one once again. The dogs brought the ball back down court tried a shot and missed and a scramble for the ball before it went out of bounds. The referee signaled the ball went off a bulldog player and Caldwell had the ball, down one with 2:05 to play.

That's when the defensive play of the game took place as Dwayne Davis made a steal on the ball and the Dogs took a time out with 1:49 to play. After the time out, the dogs stalled some more before D. Davis was found open under the basket for a two and the dogs were up three 63-60 with 57 seconds left in the game.

The Hornets missed on their next possession and with the clock ticking down they were forced to found sending Knight to the line. Knight missed the shot and Caldwell got the rebound and started back up court needing a three to send the game into overtime. The dog defense pressed as the clock ticked down 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0…then the ball was in the air from three point range and swish thru the net - BUT it was after the buzzer and the dogs had their first district win.

On the night Kendrick Trotter led the team in scoring with 22 points, JaMarcus Hartsfield added 13; Dwayne Davis with 7; Travis Graves 6; Jameus Hartsfield 5; Knight and Red Richardson with 3 each; Anthony Simms and Devon Hughes rounded out the scoring with 2 points a piece.

Tuesday night the Dogs travel to Lorena and then its back home Friday night the 17th to take on Cameron.

See you at the game.

Marlin ISD
Created August 26, 1997 -- last revision September 2002
Please mail comments or suggestions to tsimpson@marlinisd.org

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