Mercer wins on senior night
April Ellis
Herald Staff
E-mail@harrodsburgherald.com
Kaelin Drakeford (14) dribbles between a couple Frankfort defenders in Mercer’s victory over the Panthers on senior night. Drakeford has five points on the night. (Photo by April Ellis)
The Mercer County Titans (2-14), faced the Frankfort Panthers (13-11), Friday night, Feb. 9, for senior night. The Titans walked away with the 68-61 victory.
The Titans never led by more than eight in the first quarter, closing it out 17-11.
“Frankfort had their team, for the most part, finally back. They had been missing their big kid for about two weeks and he makes a huge difference for them,” said Mercer Head Coach Josh Hamlin. “Earlier in the year, they battled GRC to the wire, so we knew that it was going to be a tough test. They had some kids really shoot the ball well, despite us playing some solid defense.”
“These are the type of games that make you better. You don’t want blow out games right now because you aren’t going to have those in the postseason,” said Hamlin. “That game saw us keep a good offensive team in the low 60’s, and we didn’t play great offensively. It was a positive for our team to see that even when our offense wasn’t clicking that we are able to win.”
The Titans took their biggest lead of the game 59-48, after Faulkner hit more foul shots. Faulkner made 10 trips to the line before the night was out hitting, 14 of 20.
The Panthers refused to make senior night easy for the Titans. When they started fighting back, Hamlin called a time out to settle his team. It seemed to work for a few minutes, but the Panthers had a run and cut Mercer’s lead down to two points, 63-61, with only 1:14 left to play.
Hamlin called another time out, and his strategy worked well, as they burned the clock and forced Frankfort to send Faulkner to the line. The Mister Basketball Candidate closed out senior night with a massive slam to the rim, wrapping up the victory, 68-61.
Scoring for the Titans: Baughman 16, Divine 7, Jamisen Lewis 1, Faulkner 34, Drakeford 5, Gillis 5.
Scoring for the Panthers: Carter 23, Bush 2, Gabeheart 4, Frank 22, Davis 3, Tillman 7.
For full story, check out this week’s issue of the Harrodsburg Herald.
