By Steve Keenan
Sports Editor
FAYETTEVILLE — Greg Crist admits it’s sometimes frustrating to take to the court against Fayetteville, a main rival for his Midland Trail team.
But Crist can deal with it as long as the end result is a positive one for the Patriots, as it was with Friday night’s 43-39 victory in the Class A Region 3, Section 1 championship game at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building.
“As a credit to Larry (Spangler, Fayetteville’s coach), he just has a way of getting you into his style of play,” Crist said. “They do a good job of running their offense and don’t get in a hurry.”
On this night, though, it was the Patriots capturing the sectional plaque, and they were in no hurry to leave the court afterward.
“As long as the outcome is in our favor, I don’t care too much,” Crist said as his players and fans celebrated. “Our kids played hard tonight.”
Fayetteville beat Trail 44-39 in the regular season.
“I kind of thought it would be low-scoring, with it being a rivalry game and everybody being pumped up,” Spangler said. “Midland Trail played a good game, and our kids played real hard.”
After Fayetteville frantically fouled its way into the one-and-one situation down the stretch, getting there with just two seconds left, Midland Trail’s Noah Sparks, who had earlier missed two freebies, calmly sank both ends of the bonus situation to give his team the final four-point cushion.
“Noah is probably our best foul shooter; that’s why I had him and Sidney (Crist) in there at the end,” Greg Crist said.
In the final quarter, the Pirates didn’t help themselves, going 1-of-7 from the charity stripe (and 4-of-13 overall, to go with 16-of-48 shooting from the floor.)
“We missed some foul shots toward the end; that’s what killed us,” Spangler said. “You’ve got to capitalize on your free throws.”
“They missed a couple of free throws down the stretch, and it was kids who don’t normally miss that many,” Crist said.
Two of those misfires, by Nich Carte, occurred with Fayetteville clinging to a 39-38 lead with 2:17 to go. Midland Trail took advantage, pushing the ball downcourt before Mark Nickell fed Joey Fox, who buried a three-pointer from the right wing at the 2:08 mark to put the Patriots ahead for good. It was Fox’ second game-winning goal in as many nights and was the final scoring before Sparks iced the win.
The inside tandem of Kelly Minter (14 points) and Casey Deskins (10) once again came up big for Midland Trail. “We attacked the basket real well and got inside shots,” Crist said.
Fox contributed 10 points to the Trail cause.
Carte, who dropped 35 points the previous evening against Valley, was limited to six points against Trail. “That (Caleb) Carte boy did a good job defending Nich,” Spangler said.
Corey Goodman tallied a team-high 11 points for the Pirates, including nine in the first period as Fayetteville moved into a 13-12 lead. Brandon Doyle contributed nine points.
Getting a three-pointer from Doyle, a deuce by MichaelAngelo Hernandez following a mad scramble and two free throws from Nich Carte, Fayetteville moved into a 30-26 lead with 2:20 left in the third. But Trail responded when Deskins scored off a nice wrap-around assist by Caleb Carte, and Minter nailed a short jumper to even it at 30-30 with one quarter left.
“We got that four-point lead and kind of relaxed,” Spangler said. “We let those guards penetrate and they scored four straight points.
“I thought after we got that lead we’d be OK.”
Midland Trail advanced to Friday’s game with a thrilling 62-61 win over Pocahontas County, while Fayetteville — powered by Nich Carte’s 35 points — moved on with a 56-49 triumph over Valley. For complete stories on those games, see www.fayettetribune.com later today.
Midland Trail will host Section 2 runner-up Iaeger at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Hico. Fayetteville (10-7) will play at Section 2 champ Meadow Bridge at the same time. The two winners advance to the state tournament.
Meadow Bridge trimmed Iaeger 45-33 Friday night at PikeView High School.
— E-mail: skeenan@
register-herald.com
Midland Trail 43, Fayetteville 39
Midland Trail (13-5)
Caleb Carte 2 1-2 5, Joey Fox 4 0-0 10, Casey Deskins 5 0-1 10, Kelly Minter 7 0-0 14, Noah Sparks 0 2-4 2, Mark Nickell 0 0-0 0, Jordan Burdette 0 0-0 0, Casey Kessler 1 0-2 2, Sidney Crist 0 0-0 0, Ryan Whitlock 0 0-0 0. Totals: 19 3-9 43.
Fayetteville (10-7)
Nich Carte 2 2-4 6, MichaelAngelo Hernandez 3 1-4 7, Corey Goodman 5 0-2 11, Dylan Young 2 0-1 5, Brandon Doyle 4 0-0 9, Drew Weis 0 1-2 1, Chris Hill 0 0-0 0. Totals: 16 4-13 39.
MT 12 13 5 13 — 43
F 13 7 10 9 — 39
Three-point goals: MT: 2 (Fox 2); F: 3 (Goodman, Young, Doyle); Fouled out: F: Carte.
