‘It feels amazing.’ Douglass and Madison Central will battle for trip to Sweet 16.
It will be more than two months since Frederick Douglass and Madison Central faced each other in the regular season when they take the floor at Eastern Kentucky’s McBrayer Arena for the boys’ 11th Region Tournament finals on Saturday.
Both are very different teams than the ones that battled in a 59-50 Douglass victory on Jan. 25 — Madison Central, literally.
Playing without starters Will Hardin, Braeden Ray and Trey Skaggs that day, the Indians stayed with the No. 7 Broncos and had the game tied with three minutes left when Douglass pulled away.
Broncos Coach Jason Moseley knows Madison Central won’t be any easier to defeat than crosstown rival Paul Laurence Dunbar was Thursday night in the region semifinals.
“We’ll enjoy this win all the way to midnight. At midnight, it’s back to business,” Moseley said after Douglass escaped with a 56-55 win over the Bulldogs. “I’ll be watching film from that moment forward trying to prepare us.”
Madison Central Coach Allen Feldhaus feels confident his players will be rested and ready for the challenge after topping Franklin County 67-51 in Thursday night’s other semifinal at EKU.
“I like the matchup. They are really playing well,” Feldhaus said of Douglass. “They are very strong and physical, so I’ve already told them the key with (Douglass) will be rebounding. I think if we stay in the game on the boards, we’ll have a shot.”
Douglass’s Dashawn Jackson, an EKU commit, will be looking to make history for the Broncos on the same floor he plans to further his playing career in college. Saturday will be the first trip to a region finals for Douglass (19-1).
“My freshman and sophomore year, we didn’t make it out of districts,” Jackson said. “Then last year, we lost in the region semis. This year, we’re in the region championship. It just shows how far this program has come. It feels amazing.”
Madison Central (20-9) hasn’t been to a region finals since the Indians won both it and the Boys’ Sweet 16 with Dominique Hawkins in 2013. Frederick Douglass was unbroken ground on an old horse farm back then.
“We preach all year that we’ve got one goal at Madison Central and that’s to win the 11th Region,” Feldhaus said. “There’s three steps here, and we got the other two. We’re close enough that we can taste it. I don’t want to fall short.”
Thursday’s semifinals
Douglass 56, Dunbar 55: When the Broncos rode a wave of momentum to an 11-point lead over Paul Laurence Dunbar late in the third quarter, they all knew there would be no time to relax against the Bulldogs.
Earlier this season, Douglass had an even bigger lead on Dunbar and held it later in the game, and they lost by seven.
“We were up 16 and lost at their place — the first and only loss we had this year — and we’ve been working all year trying to figure out those things and make up for the mistakes that we had during that game,” Douglass’s Moseley said.
Thursday night, battling for a spot in the 11th Region finals, Dunbar made its run to get back in the game, trimming the lead to one point three times in the closing minutes.
It’s hard enough to guard Dunbar on a high school court, but playing on the longer college court made things even more difficult,” Douglass’s Kai Simpson said.
“It gasses us because we go down the floor and we press a lot. It was hard to guard,” he said.
But this time, Douglass didn’t falter.
“All my brothers stepped up and we persevered,” said Douglass’s Jackson, who led all scorers with 24 points, but was held to just one field goal in the fourth quarter. “(We knew) no matter how big we get up, no matter how much momentum we get, we’ve got to keep our foot (down).”
It could have gone the other way as the Bulldogs rallied with help from all over, including points by Nick Spalding, Cade Hilt, Max VanDyke, Shyhiem Drew and a thunderous dunk by Tim Hall Jr. that pulled Dunbar within 52-49 with just over two minutes to go.
But in the face of Dunbar’s tenacious defense, Douglass’s players kept scrapping, as well, despite some late turnovers.
“Tonight, down the stretch, there for a minute, Dunbar wanted it badder than we did,” Moseley said. “In the end, my guys said, ‘Coach, we got you, we’re going to find a way to win this game.’”
Up by one with under 30 seconds to play, Douglass successfully avoided turning the ball over under pressure and forced Dunbar to foul Zayden Ferguson, putting the senior at the line with six seconds left. Two free throws would surely seal at least a tie, but Ferguson missed the front end of the bonus.
That’s when Jackson and teammate Tyson Barrett refused to concede the rebound to Dunbar. While the loose ball eventually did land in a Dunbar player’s hands, the battle for it took a precious three seconds off the clock, meaning Dunbar would have to go the length of the floor in 2.7 seconds for the win. Spalding’s halfcourt heave after a timeout sailed high.
“It was huge,” Moseley said of the rebounding play. “Fifty-fifty balls win ball games. You have to fight. That’s what I tell guys every day. …
“We’re meant for this. We were built for this. Stop playing not to lose and play to win, and that’s what they did. They came out and executed down the stretch and took care of the basketball.”
Simpson scored 13 points for Douglass with Tyson Barrett adding 11. Hall scored 15 points with 12 rebounds to lead Dunbar (13-6). Spalding added 11.
Madison Central 67, Franklin County 51: Perhaps heady from the 101-point performance against Lexington Catholic on Tuesday in which the Indians connected on 15 of their 21 three-point shots and barely missed any others, Madison Central at first struggled from the field against the Flyers on Thursday.
A little halftime correction from Coach Feldhaus rectified things in the third quarter as Madison Central settled down and pulled away from the 41st District champions.
“I think we took 19 shots in the first half and 12 of them were threes. And a lot of them were flat-footed threes,” Feldhaus said. “So we came out in the second half with a little encouragement and started moving a little bit more … We responded the way we should have.”
Madison Central’s seven-point halftime lead ballooned to 20 as the Indians went on a 15-3 run to start the third quarter. Will Hardin scored eight of those and assisted on a Braeden Ray three-pointer during the run.
“Coach let us know at halftime we had to pick it up a little bit,” said senior guard Kole Browne, who led the team with 24 points.
While Lexington Catholic was happy to run at a torrid pace Tuesday, Franklin County slowed the game down at every opportunity and the strategy worked for the first two periods.
“We like to go fast and cut the court, but every time they got it, they slowed it down,” Madison Central’s Ray said. “We had to guard for 33 seconds at a time.”
Franklin County’s zone defense invited long-range shots, but Madison Central made only 25 percent of them against the Flyers a far cry from the 70 percent clip they made against the Knights.
“We weren’t really expecting them to come out in a zone,” Browne said. “We are shooting 50 percent as a team from three. … That really made us kind of shocked.”
Full-court pressure and their own half-court zone trap helped Madison Central get Franklin County out of its comfort zone, forcing four of the Flyers’ 10 turnovers in the third quarter while also holding them to only three made shots in nine attempts.
Hardin and Jaylen Davis added 20 and 11 points, respectively for Madison Central. Fred Farrier led Franklin County (15-10) with 16 points. Zac Cox added 15.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS 56, PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR 55
PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR (13-6): Hall 6-11 3-5 15; Spalding 4-13 1-2 11; Kumwimba 4-6 0-2 8; Hilt 1-2 4-5 6; Carter 2-8 1-1 6; Drew 3-3 0-1 6; VanDyke 1-8 0-0 3; Haggard 0-1 0-0 0; Barbee 0-0 0-0 0; Williams 0-3 0-0 0. Totals 21-55 9-16 55.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS (19-1): Jackson 9-19 3-3 24; Simpson 5-15 2-2 13; Barrett 5-8 1-2 11; O’Roy-Ford 3-4 0-1 6; Fergerson 1-1 0-1 2; Haga 0-0 0-0 0; Scearce 0-5 0-0 0; McMullen 0-3 0-0 0; Webb 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 23-55 6-9 56.
Paul Laurence Dunbar 13 11 17 14 —55
Frederick Douglass 13 19 15 9 — 56
Three-point goals — Paul Laurence Dunbar: 4-14 (Spalding 2-4; Carter 1-3; VanDyke 1-5; Williams 0-2), Frederick Douglass: 4-18 (Jackson 3-8; Simpson 1-4; Scearce 0-3; McMullen 0-2; Barrett 0-1). Fouled out — Paul Laurence Dunbar-None, Frederick Douglass-None. Rebounds — Paul Laurence Dunbar 39 (Hall 12), Frederick Douglass 32 (O’Roy-Ford 7). Assists — Paul Laurence Dunbar 6 (Carter 2), Frederick Douglass 10 (Jackson 4). Total fouls — Paul Laurence Dunbar 13, Frederick Douglass 13.
MADISON CENTRAL 67, FRANKLIN COUNTY 51
MADISON CENTRAL (20-9): Browne 8-12 7-8 24; Hardin 8-15 4-4 20; Davis 3-10 4-4 11; Ray 1-3 2-2 5; Skaggs 1-2 0-3 3; Chenault 0-0 2-2 2; Hardge 1-1 0-0 2; Wood 0-0 0-0 0; Parks 0-0 0-0 0; Hurt 0-0 0-0 0; Mullins 0-0 0-0 0; West 0-1 0-0 0; Shannon 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 22-44 19-23 67.
FRANKLIN COUNTY (15-10): Farrier 6-10 1-2 16; Cox 5-18 3-4 15; Peiffer 3-8 2-4 8; Broyles 3-6 0-0 7; Mulder 1-5 0-0 3; Mattison 0-2 2-2 2; Dawson 0-0 0-0 0; Mays-Clark 0-0 0-0 0; Taylor 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 18-49 8-12 51.
Madison Central 10 14 23 20 — 67
Franklin County 6 13 11 21 — 51
Three-point goals — Madison Central: 4-16 (Skaggs 1-1; Ray 1-3; Browne 1-2; Davis 1-7; West 0-1; Hardin 0-2), Franklin County: 7-20 (Farrier 3-5; Cox 2-8; Broyles 1-3; Mulder 1-3; Mattison 0-1). Rebounds — Madison Central: 34 (Hardin 9), Franklin County: 22 (Peiffer 7). Assists — Madison Central 15 (Ray 3; Davis 3), Franklin County 9 (Mattison 3). Total fouls—Madison Central 13, Franklin County 15.
11th Region championship
Madison Central vs. Frederick Douglass
When: 5:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: EKU’s McBrayer Arena
Records: Madison Central 20-9, Frederick Douglass 19-1
TV: CWKYT
Live stream: PrepSpin.com
This story was originally published March 26, 2021 at 8:21 AM.
