Polk County uses 3-point explosion to earn key conference win over Mitchell

It was a quarter that Josh McEntire had waited all season to see, and it was quite a site to behold.

Polk County’s boys basketball team put on a shooting exhibition in the second period of Wednesday’s game with Mitchell, hitting seven 3-pointers and scoring 33 points. The offensive fireworks helped the Wolverines build a lead as large as 25 points and survive a late Mountaineer rally for an 83-74 Western Highlands Conference win at Polk County.

Five different Wolverines hit 3-pointers in the second period, and they rained in from the key, the corner, the wing. As the long-range assault continued, the look of resignation on the face of Mitchell coach Daron Williams grew, Williams simply closing his eyes and shaking his head with each bucket.

Polk County (6-12, 2-7) finished the game with 12 3-pointers, one shy of the school’s single-game record, with nine of those coming in the first half.

“I told their coach we hit more threes in the first half than we have the last three or four ball games combined,” said McEntire. “In my coaching career we’ve never hit nine threes in a half. And it was different kids, too. It was amazing. That proves we’ve got some kids that can shoot the basketball when they’re confident.

“It’s amazing when the ball goes through the basket how much simpler the game of basketball is”

Though in the midst of a span of eight games in 14 days, the Wolverines opened the game playing at a high energy level, crashing the boards for rebounds, aggressively contesting shots on defense and looking to run offensively following Mitchell misses. The uptempo approach was by design, McEntire said, given that Mitchell entered the game coming off a huge win over Mountain Heritage the previous evening.

“The key to this game, and every game we play in, is that we’ve got to have constant energy,” McEntire said. “We really played with a lot of energy early.

“We knew Mitchell had played a game the night before and they played against their rival. We knew they really excited about the big win and they were probably worn out. That was our plan, to get them going up and down the court, let’s get them started running. That part worked, and we had a bunch of big shots, guys catching the ball in rhythm, ready to shoot and making them.”

Polk’s second-quarter flurry gave the Wolverines a 50-29 halftime lead. The lead grew to 56-31 early in the third quarter, and Polk still led by 20, 69-49, when Jamal Tanner hit a 3-pointer from the wing with 53 seconds left in the period.

But Mitchell scored five points before the buzzer to pull within 15, and the spurt seemed to give the Mountaineers (7-14, 4-6) inspiration. Mitchell cut the lead to 78-70 with 3:18 left and had a possession to draw even closer, but failed to score. Still up eight with 1:58 remaining, Polk County senior Anthony Carson then hit three of four free throws in a key stretch to push the Wolverine lead back to 11 and effectively seal the win.

“We had way too many turnovers late, but we just weren’t executing our late game,” McEntire said. “I geuss we felt like they were never close enough and we didn’t get that sense of urgency until they cut it to eight and we finally started playing again.”

Tanner had 28 points, Saqaun Miller had 13 and Wes Mullis 10 to lead a Polk County attack missing senior Jaron Bontrager, sidelined by a concussion until at least next week.

Tanner had three 3-pointers in the second period, with Miller, Jordan Smith, Daniel Painter and Wes Brady each adding one. Polk County built a 27-18 lead midway through the second, then had a 19-6 run, capped by back-to-back threes by Miller and Painter, to take a 46-24 lead, their largest margin of the first half.

Polk County hosts Owen on Friday night, the first of two meetings with the Warhorses in the final four games.

“It’s huge to get a conference win at home,” McEntire said. “We will take as many conference wins as we can this time of year to get ourselves a better seed in the conference tournament and get ourselves back in position to try to make a run at the playoffs. We’re probably going to have to win out to have a chance to do that.”