BOYS
Asked to wager a guess on the final outcome of Friday night’s Marmaton Valley-Yates Center game, anyone with even an anecdotal sense of the two teams would surely have been quick to predict a lopsided Yates Center win.
Yates Center is one of the best teams in southeast Kansas. Marmaton Valley is a solid team, too — scrappy, energetic, persevering — but they lack the long, athletic, score-from-anywhere guard that Yates Center enjoys in their junior phenom, Aaron King, and they lack the depth of roster that has made Yates Center the favorite in nearly every one of their match-ups so far this year.
Had you entered the gym in Moran on Friday night without the burden of this prior knowledge, however, you might have put your money on Marmaton Valley.
The hometown Cats took the heavily favored — but, in no time, flabbergasted — team from Yates Center down to the wire.
It was basket-for-basket the entire first half, with Yates Center managing a five point (28-23) lead going into the third quarter.
Eager to prove that the first half wasn’t a fluke, Marmaton Valley stomped on the gas once more, pulling within three points of the visiting squad with four minutes left in the third quarter. The Marmaton Valley crowd was on its feet now, dispatching enthusiastic hoots in the direction of the hometown team.
They weren’t on their feet long, however. Hardly 15 seconds had passed before Yates Center’s Aaron King orchestrated a dramatic drive and dunk that quieted the Marmaton Valley crowd and put their bottoms back on the bleachers.
Now, it was the Yates Center fans who were up on their feet.
But then, in no time, back on the other end, Marmaton Valley junior Gage Griffith connected on a gorgeous floater in the lane. It was Yates Center’s turn to sit down. Marmaton Valley fans? They were up again.
Aaron King drives, scores: Marmaton Valley fans down, Yates Center up.
Griffith again—this time it’s a three-pointer from the baseline: Yates Center down, Marmaton Valley up.
And so on. Up, down, up, down. At the end of the third quarter, the gymnasium rocking back and forth like a Weeble, it was Yates Center 40, Marmaton Valley 35.
But it wasn’t to be. The underdogs from Marmaton Valley would go on to lose by a score of 52-47.
Yates Center’s Aaron King led all scorers with 27. Marmaton Valley’s Gage Griffith followed with 26.
Such was the spine on both sides, though, that no one gave an inch the entire game, and victory was held in suspension up through the contest’s final seconds. Yates Center led by a mere one point with less than a minute to go; Marmaton Valley had the ball. Marmaton Valley shooting guard Justice Pugh dribbled in and out of traffic until he found a blank patch of hardwood from which to launch a contested jumper. But it was no good; the ball caromed off the back of the rim and the hometown Cats were forced to foul. It was in this way — with a handful of made free throws — that Yates Center was eventually able to get its nose across the finish line first.
The buzzer sounded. It was over and the two teams trotted off.
