Lafayette uses last second shot against city rival Benton to advance in district tournament

By Calvin Silvers

The journey for a state championship continues in basketball, and this week it’s been classes 4-6 thinning out the pool of teams that can go onto sectionals and beyond. The Class 4 District 16 Tournament had two city schools still alive, and those two programs battled it out at Lafayette High School.

The two teams were the one-seeded Benton Cardinals took on the hosting, and four-seeded Lafayette Fighting Irish. These two teams played once this season on Feb. 6 where Benton tallied a 65-49 victory.

However, on Thursday Lafayette spoiled Benton’s 16-game winning streak, and sent them home for the season as Jodell Redman hit a last second shot for the 63-62 victory to advance to the district championship.

“I mean when you’re playing in districts, playing in the playoffs, that’s the type of game that you want. I knew coming in that it was going to be a hard fought game compared to what we did the first game, because we allowed them to control the tempo,” Lafayette head coach Kevin Bristol said. “That was one of the goals to play at our speed, our pace and not let them do the things they wanted to do, so that’s what we accomplished tonight.”

In the first quarter, Benton’s Lincoln Goodwin got things moving early on, as he tallied four quick points out of the gate, all from inside the arc, to help propel the Cardinals to an early 6-0 lead. The hot start would wind down for Benton, as Lafayette turned the tide going on a 7-0 run to take a 7-6 lead.

“If my team didn’t get up that energy, I mean, they threw a punch, we threw one back,” freshman Jodell Redman said. “You know, I couldn’t have done it without them. The energy really helped us, you know, we couldn’t have done it without them.”

It would be the senior that gave Lafayette a 18-13 lead, as Ty Nance knocked down three, 3-pointers to end the first quarter. The second quarter started off slow, and that pace would continue.

Nance would hit another 3-pointer in the quarter, and Benton was able to rally off 11 points in the quarter, but Lafayette entered the halftime break up 26-24 after a Drake Losson buzzer beater that was shot beyond the half-court line.

“It’s good to see it when you need it, but I still understand that I have a young team, so we just have to continue to coach them and be positive with them and just love on them,” Bristol said.

That love and trust went a long way out of the break, as both teams broke open their scoring, with neither team seeming to miss from anywhere on the court. The Cardinals had two early and-1 opportunities in the third quarter, and Redman continued his dominance down low.

As the quarter came to a close, it was 48-43 in favor of Benton, as both teams combined for 41 total points in the third quarter.

Late in the fourth, Lafayette was down 62-60, and a Benton charge would be called, sending Redman to the line. The freshman would hit his first, but the second would bounce off the rim and hit a Cardinal before bouncing out of bounds, as Lafayette retained the ball.

Out of the timeout, Kyzdon Robertson would slip, and the ball would land in the hands of Benton Cardinals Zach Smith. Smith would miss on the free-throws to go up, as Lafayette had a chance to seal the game.

With roughly six seconds remaining, Lafayette passed the ball inbounds in front of their bench, with Robertson coming to retrieve the ball. He would drive, allowing two Benton defenders to slightly step up from their position in the paint, and Redman snuck behind, catch the Robertson pass, and laid it in as time expired to send the Cardinals home.

“Yes. It’s my first time experiencing this. Whenever he lost the ball, I just thought, you know, let me get this and let me get it up, you know, and my heart was racing when I missed the free throw, but I got it right back and put it right back up for the win,” Redman said.

Lafayette will face two-seeded Maryville Spoofhounds at 6 p.m. on Saturday at Lafayette High School.