‘We’re going to the ‘ship!’ After 9-game skid, Frankfort is rolling in All ‘A’ Classic.
“We’re going to the ’ship! We’re going to the ‘ship!”
The chant resonated among the Frankfort Panthers’ players and student section Saturday night in McBrayer Arena after their gutsy 49-47 overtime win over Murray in the All “A” Classic boys’ semifinals.
“It’s amazing,” said Frankfort’s Jackson Twombly, who led all scorers with 26 points. “Credit to all the fans for coming out and supporting us. We love them and we need them to win this championship.”
Three weeks ago — amid a nine-game losing streak — none of them could have possibly imagined the Panthers (11-12) would follow that up with a six-game win streak, all of those in Kentucky’s small-school tournament and its regional. The latest victory came over a 1st Region team that had a 17-3 record.
“We’re going to the ’ship now, so everything’s all good,” Twombly said. “We just hit a switch. Chaz (Austin) started getting 20 points, 15 rebounds every game. Charlie’s consistently … dishing out the ball, doing what he does, and Nate’s (O’Bryan) coming off the bench, now. We all just started playing as a team.”
Coach Chris O’Bryan explained that before the All “A” 11th Regional began, he sat down with several of his players and talked with them about their roles and what each of them needed to do going forward.
“One of them was Chaz Austin, he’s a senior leader for us,” O’Bryan said. “We said, ‘Look, we’ve got to have 15 rebounds from you. He honestly dedicated himself to that in the All “A” Region. He wasn’t worried about points. He was looking to distribute. He was crashing the boards, and that kind of sparked everybody else. … It turned the corner for us.”
Austin had 16 points and 12 rebounds Saturday and, in two key stretches, helped both keep the Panthers in the game and sealed the victory.
Trailing 39-38 with 24 seconds left in regulation, Austin got a rebound and tip-in with a foul to put Frankfort in front 41-39.
Murray responded with its own tip-in by Darius Duffy after the ball took a wild roll all the way around the rim to his fingertips with time running out. He tied the game at 41-41 with a couple of seconds to spare.
The two teams exchanged leads in the overtime period until Austin delivered again.
Tied 45-45, Austin drove the ball in from the left wing and buried a 10-footer in the lane for another “and-one” play. His free throw made it 48-45 with 8 seconds left.
With Murray needing a three-point play to tie, Frankfort fouled and put them at the line to shoot two free throws with 3 seconds left. And exchange of free throws set the final score.
“The first half, Jackson obviously came out and he balled,” O’Bryan said of Twombly’s 11 second-quarter points. “He played as well as he has all year. And he really kept us in it.”
In the second half, “they kept digging. They hit their free throws. They did what they needed to and executed down the stretch,” O’Bryan said.
Frankfort will play St. Henry — a 55-41 winner against Hazard in the other semifinal — for the championship at 2 p.m. Sunday.
This story was originally published January 25, 2020 at 8:58 PM.
