GRAFORD – Graford Coach Jeff Bell was in a quandary Saturday afternoon.
His Jackrabbits were in a battle with Class 3A Nocona, picked up to be one of the frontrunners in District 7-3A. He was without both of his big men who were quarantined and he was down four at the half after shooting just 29 percent at the half.
The cagey veteran, who won state titles at Class 3A Brock, went back to an old standby to get his team back in the fight.
“I yelled at them,” Bell said with a big smirk.
The “discussion” seemed to work as it took little time to bring the Rabbits back and into the flow of the game. Graford took the lead for good less than three minutes into the second half and coasted to a 62-45 win over the Indians.
Graford, whose lone loss was to Slidell in overtime, goes to 4-1 with the victory. Bell said being the holidays and with everything going on made things tough.
“I’m tired of Thanksgiving games but we needed to get some play in,” Bell offered. “Our effort overall was better in the second half and we were able to get the ball into the right person’s hands.”
Guard Marc Matthews converted his first two shots to tie the game at 23 barely a minute in. What became an 11-0 run for Graford was aided by six points from Dustin Matthews and a pair of free throws from Jess Lenley whose pair of free throws gave the squad the lead for good.
Marc Matthews capped a 12-point stanza with a pair of three-pointers to put the lead into double figures, 44-34, after three. After taking 21 shots in the first half, Graford took 20 in the third quarter and made 10.
Nocona kept things close in the third by burying three of its six three-pointers. It would get within eight midway through the fourth. Levi Butler’s four-point play where he was literally run over by a Nocona player and buried the free throw, got the lead back into double figures seconds later.
It was the first of two Butler bombs in the quarter. A Marc Matthews three-pointer put the lead at 15 with less than three minutes remaining. Graford went into a delay but Nocona couldn’t mount a comeback as the Indians missed their last six shots after converting four of their first five in the fourth quarter.
Butler and Marc Matthews each tossed in 20 to lead Graford.
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