ROCK PORT, Mo. — Defense was the theme during Tuesday night’s matchup between the Worth County Tigers and Rock Port Blue Jays. Although neither squad was able to generate much offense there was a lot of defense on display. Rock Port’s Aidan Burke scored nine points in overtime and the Tigers missed two shots in the final five seconds of overtime, giving the Blue Jays a 43-41 win.
“It was a good game, and we just came up short,” Worth County coach Les New said. “We’re still looking for our second, third and fourth scorer.”
Worth County started the night with six of the game’s first eight points. Levi Cassavaugh scored the first three points on a 3-point play and Tyler New made his first 3-pointer of the game to give the Tigers a 6-2 lead at the 5:24 mark.
The Blue Jays answered with 5-straight to regain the lead with 5:05 left in the quarter. New and Rock Port’s Micah Makings went back-and-forth over the final minutes of the quarter, scoring four points each.
The Blue Jays opened the second quarter with a 9-0 run, giving them the biggest lead of the game at 18-10 with 1:46 left in the half. After being held scoreless for almost seven minutes, Levi Cassavaugh scored the first points of the quarter on a 3-pointer with 1:13 left in the half. New added a jumper at the buzzer to make it 18-15 Rock Port at halftime.
The Tigers began the second half with 3-straight to tie the game at 18. Worth County took its first lead since the opening moments of the second quarter with a 3-pointer from Tanner Ridge and a layup from New.
The Blue Jays and Tigers traded the lead three times and shared two ties over the final three minutes of the third quarter. Rock Port’s Bannack Skillen scored the final five points of the quarter, sending the Blue Jays into the fourth quarter with a 3-point lead.
The fourth quarter’s first basket came on a layup from New with 5:16 left in regulation. Burke pushed the lead back to three two minutes later, but New kept responding in the fourth quarter. The junior guard tied the game at 30 with 2:39 to go.
The back-and-forth between Burke and New continued with an answer from Burke that gave the Blue Jays a two-point lead with 1:55 to go. But the fourth quarter’s biggest basket came with under a minute to go as Tayden Cook was fouled and sent to the line with 44 seconds to go and down two. Cook made both free throws and after an attempt at the buzzer missed by New, the two teams then went to overtime.
New scored the first basket of overtime, but the period proved to be a carryover of the fourth quarter. Burke scored 5-straight and seven total in a 2-minute span after scoring just seven points through the game’s first four quarters.
“We switched to man and we really struggled to guard him with that switch,” Les New said. “We played a lot of zone in the game because of their size.”
New tied the game with his fourth 3-pointer and 1:16 left in overtime. The Tigers had possession with the game still tied and 40 seconds on the clock, but a steal by Rock Port led to Burke’s basket that proved to be the game-winning shot.
Worth County had two attempts to tie or win the game, but both baskets were off the mark — sending the Tigers to their fourth-straight loss.
“We have to take what we learned tonight and apply it to the next practice and the next game,” Les New said. “We’ve been in this late game situation and now we know what it feels like. Now we need to get in another and win a close one.”
