NEW MARKET — Playing in front of their home fans and on their home floor, Southmont boys basketball opened up the Class 2A Sectional 44 on Wednesday when they hosted the North Putnam Cougars. It was a re-match of the first game of the season which the Cougars took 46-36. This game proved to be a knock down, drag out defensive battle till the very end. Facing their largest deficit of the game at 26-17 late in the third quarter, South rallied all the way back to make the score 31-29 Cougars as the Mounties had the last shot of the game to tie or take the lead. EJ Brewer flashed open under the basket and just missed the game-tying basket and Carson Chadd’s putback also fell short and the Cougars walked away with a thrilling 31-29 win to end the Mounties season.
The 29 points by the Mounties is their lowest point total since 2019 and despite the lack of offense on the evening, Southmont coach Jake Turner was still proud of how his team fought back in the game to even give themselves a chance in the final seconds.
“It’s disappointing anytime your season comes to an end,” Turner said. “I really feel for all of our kids because they put in a lot of work this year. I’m just proud of the fact that we got down early and scrapped back to tie it at half. They got it back up to nine and my concern was if we were down late that they could hold it. We just kept fighting and had multiple opportunities to tie the game or take the lead. We made a lot of sacrifices this year and put in the work, and had a really great year,”
Nolan Hackleman led all scorers with 13 points in the win for the Cougars who improve to 15-9 on the season. Brayden Monnett added six, Matthew Carrington scored five off the Cougar bench and grabbed four rebounds and added four steals. Vince Reimondo led the Mounties with eight, Carter Hubble added six, both Chadd and Brewer scored four. Trip Ward rounded out the scoring with five and Kyler McCandless scored two.
South shot just 13-36 (36%) from the field and 3-13 (23%) from three and 0-4 from the free the line. The Mounties went from the 5:44 mark of the opening quarter to the 5:41 mark of the second without scoring.
In the loss both Chadd and Brewer played their final game of their Mountie careers. Both have transformed the Southmont program over the course of their careers as Chadd has been a starter since day one his freshman season and Brewer came in his sophomore year and made an immediate impact.
“Carson Chadd won 52 games and EJ won 45 as members of our program,” Turner said in talking about his seniors. “They both helped us to our first sectional title in nearly 30 years, first Sagamore Conference title, Sugar Creek Classic title and plenty more accolades. The thing that sticks out to me when I really think about those guys is how tough they are. They changed the culture of our program with how serious they took the defensive side of the ball. Both of them are going to go far in life and I’m proud to be able to be their coach.”
Southmont ends its season with a record of 15-8. North Putnam advances to Friday nights sectional semi-final where they will play Riverton Parke who defeated Cloverdale 43-37.
NORTH PUTNAM 31, SOUTHMONT 29
Score By Quarter
NP 8 7 13 3 — 31
SM 4 11 6 8 — 29
North Putnam (15-9)
FG-FGA FT-FTA Pts: Monnett 2-8 2-5 6, Helderman 0-5 0-0 0, Barber 0-2 3-5 3, Hackleman 5-6 1-2 13, Windmiller 1-2 0-0 2, Farrington 2-3 1-1 5, Pickel 1-1 0-1 2; Totals 11-27 7-14 31
Southmont (15-8)
Carson Chadd 2-4 0-3 4, Trip Ward 2-11 0-0 5, Hess 0-4 0-0 0, EJ Brewer 2-4 0-0 4, Carter Hubble 3-6 0-1 6, Reimondo 3-6 0-0 8, Kyler McCandless 1-1 0-0 2, Lucas Oppy 0-0 0-0 0; Totals 13-36 0-4 29
3 pt shooting: NP 2-12 (Hackleman 2), SM 3-13 (Reimondo 2, Ward)
Rebounding: NP 25 (Barber 6), SM 25 (Chadd 8, Brewer 6)
Turnovers: NP 16, SM 14
Pts off To’s: NP 14, SM 8
Paint Pts: NP 18, SM 20