The Miami Trace Panthers played the first varsity basketball game in the Miami Trace Middle School gymnasium Saturday night, hosting the Tigers of Dayton Stivers School of the Arts.
The game was moved to the middle school from the Panther Pit in the high school due to electrical issues at the high school.
Miami Trace rallied from a slow start and came on very strong in the fourth quarter to post a 71-59 victory.
The Panthers (now 7-6 overall) were led in scoring by senior Cameron Carter, the game’s leading scorer, with 30 points. Carter had a game-high eight assists and also had five rebounds, three steals and blocked two shots.
Junior Austin Brown scored 18 points and had a double-double with 10 rebounds. He also led the game with four blocked shots.
Senior Darby Tyree scored 15 points to go along with seven rebounds and two blocked shots.
Allen Latimore led a trio of Tigers in double figures with 14 points.
Devaun Allen scored 13 and Trevon Ellis had 12 points for the Tigers. Ellis led the Tigers with seven rebounds.
The lead changed hands three times in the very early going of the game.
With the Panthers in front, 4-3, Stivers went on a 13-0 run, arguably their finest moment of the game, to surge past Miami Trace, 16-4 with just over one minute to play in the first quarter.
At the end of the first quarter, the Tigers held an 18-8 lead.
The Panthers were able to make up that deficit with a 12-2 run that tied the score, 20-20 with 2:54 to play in the first half.
Stivers took a 29-25 lead into the halftime break.
During the halftime, Miami Trace recognized the 1966-67 and 1968-69 basketball teams that went undefeated in the South Central Ohio League.
The third quarter was very much a back-and-forth affair. The Panthers drew to within as few as two points and trailed by as many as seven during the third quarter.
After three complete, Stivers led Miami Trace, 44-40.
The Panthers, in no small part, won this game at the free throw line.
Stivers made 5 of 16 free throw attempts for 31 percent, while Miami Trace sank 22 of 30 shots from the line for 73 percent.
In the fourth quarter alone, the Panthers converted 14 of 17 from the foul line, part of a 31-point scoring surge that saw Miami Trace practically sail past the Tigers.
The Panthers took a 47-44 lead over Stivers on a three-point field goal by senior Dakota Bolton.
The Tigers pulled back even at 51-51 with 3:46 left on the MTMS scoreboard clock.
Stivers led at 54-53 and 56-54, the latter score with 2:25 to go in the game.
From that point forward, Miami Trace outscored Stivers, 17-3.
Tyree had a slam dunk in the final minute-plus of the game for the Panthers.
“We made the point to the kids, in between the first and second quarters that really, as much adversity as we had suffered in the first period — we had guys with multiple fouls — we were only down 10,” Miami Trace head coach Rob Pittser said. “We were playing like we were down 30 and the game was in the fourth quarter.
“We were out of sorts on offense,” Pittser said. “We were doing things defensively, reaching and grabbing, that was very uncharacteristic. We just told the kids that we needed to play the type of basketball that we’ve been taught to play and stay within our system and that they didn’t need to do anything special, some Herculean effort to get out of that hole.
“It was a 10-point game and we couldn’t possibly have played worse,” Pittser said. “All we needed to do was stay within the framework of our gameplan to get back in it and get over the hump and that’s what happened.”
Miami Trace is slated to play at Bexley Tuesday with the freshman game starting at 4:45 p.m.
Miami Trace (4-1 in the FAC) begins the second round of conference play with a game at 5-0 Chillicothe Friday night.
SCORE BY QUARTERS
MT 8 17 15 31 — 71
DS 18 11 15 15 — 59
MIAMI TRACE — Cameron Carter 7 (2)-10-30; Austin Brown 6-6-18; Darby Tyree 5-5-15; Dakota Bolton 0 (1)-0-3; Heath Cockerill 1-0-2; Austin Mathews 1-0-2; Brett Lewis 0-1-1; Matt Fender 0-0-0. TOTALS — 20 (3)-22-71. Free throw shooting: 22 of 30 for 73 percent. Three-point field goals: Carter, 2; Bolton. Combined field goal shooting: 23 of 44 for 52 percent. Three-point field goal shooting: 3 of 14 for 21 percent. Rebounds: 35 (6 offensive). Assists: 12. Steals: 6. Blocks: 8. Turnovers: 17. Personal fouls: 16. Bench points: 5. Second chance points: 2. Points off turnovers: 8.
DAYTON STIVERS — Trevon Ellis 4 (1)-1-12; Doug Spear 2-0-4; Terry Matthew 0-0-0; Devaun Allen 5 (1)-0-13; Brandon Motley 1-0-2; Lamar Lee 0-0-0; Nazir Rolack 0-0-0; Allen Latimore 4 (2)-0-14; Antonio Aubrey 1-1-3; Max Williams 1 (2)-1-9; Lorenzo Lewis 0-1-1. TOTALS — 18 (6)-5-59. Free throw shooting: 5 of 16 for 31 percent. Three-point field goals: Latimore, 2; Williams, 2; Allen, Ellis. Combined field goal shooting: 24 of 67 for 35 percent. Three-point field goal shooting: 6 of 23 for 26 percent. Rebounds: 31 (13 offensive). Assists: 15. Steals: 13. Blocks: 2. Turnovers: 11. Personal fouls: 24. Bench points: 11. Second chance points: 8. Points off turnovers: 11.
