Late scoring drought dooms Polk boys in loss to North Henderson

The tale of Monday’s non-conference matchup unfolded in an all-too-familiar fashion for Polk County.

In what seemed a repeat of last week’s home loss to Reynolds, the Wolverines battled one of the area’s better teams evenly for three quarters, but a crucial fourth-quarter offensive drought allowed North Henderson to score 15 unanswered points and pull away for a 65-51 victory.

In a game that featured 22 3-pointers – 12 by North (10-4), 10 by Polk (1-12) – the Wolverines rallied from 10 points down in the first quarter and eight points down in the third to trail 42-40 entering the fourth quarter. Jamal Wheeler then scored on a layup at the 7:11 mark of the fourth to even the score at 42.

But the Wolverines wouldn’t score again until Dillion Overholt’s 3-pointer with 1:47 left in the game. By that time, the Knights had pulled away to a 57-42 advantage, scoring both inside and out in the spurt. In addition to its outside marksmanship, the Knights were 14-of-16 at the foul line in the game and didn’t miss at all in the final period.

Polk County led Reynolds last week late in the third period before the Rockets scored 16 straight points to take that win.

“We hit a drought in the fourth quarter offensively, and kind of quit playing defense at the same time,” said Polk County head coach Josh McEntire. “We started taking some bad shots and forcing some shots instead of moving the ball around and taking good shots like we had the whole game.

“You won’t see many high school teams that have that many kids that can hit 3-pointers. Give them credit. They move the ball and they find open shots and they hit those shots. They made the shots when it counted down the stretch.”

Down 10 after the first period, Polk County held North Henderson to one basket – a 3-pointer – in the second quarter and had three threes of its own in rallying to even the score at 20-20. The Knights eventually took a 23-22 halftime lead.

That set the stage for a wild third quarter in which the two teams hit a combined 10 3-pointers. North Henderson hit six of those, its only field goals in the quarter, but couldn’t shake the Wolverines as Holden Owens hit two key threes and Arnie Twitty and Wheeler also added long-range baskets, keeping the Wolverines close until the fourth quarter.

“A lot of people are starting to fill the roles I thought they could fill,” McEntire said. “We’ve got guys coming off the bench and shooting the ball against zones, we’ve got guys giving us minutes on defense, we’ve got guys rebounding the ball. We’re doing some good things. But we’ve got to be more consistent on offense.”

Wheeler had 16 points and Twitty had 11 to lead Polk County, who is back in action Wednesday, hosting Owen in a Western Highlands Conference matchup. Drew Williams led North Henderson with 28 points, including 12 in the fourth quarter.

Polk County Scoring
Jamal Wheeler 16, Arnie Twitty 11, Holden Owens 6, Daniel Painter 6, Jason Chupp 4, Wes Mullis 4, Dillion Overholt 3, Jaylin Wilkins 1