Aiken basketball showed second-half grit but fell short in historic DIII state final
DAYTON, Ohio – The Aiken Falcons needed their best second half yet to have a chance at their first boys basketball state championship.
The Falcons delivered and gave themselves that chance, but a senior-led Louisville Leopards squad stemmed the tide and held off the Falcons in a thriller to win their first title. Aiken fell 63-61 to Louisville in the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division III state championship game Friday at the University of Dayton Arena.
Both teams were in a state final for the first time. Aiken finished 27-2 and Louisville 24-5.
Trailing by 19 at halftime, the Falcons overwhelmed the Leopards to start the second half and eventually made it a one-possession game. But they missed chances to pull even, and the bigger, senior-led Leopards made one more play down the stretch to win it.
“This season has been historic,” coach Derrell Black said. “Nobody could have predicted this. I couldn’t have even predicted this. I thought being 21-0 was unbelievable. This thing will be a thorn in my side for a while but it will keep me hungry. These guys will forever be cemented in Aiken history as the turning point that turned the tide back to the top and got Aiken back to being a respectable program not just in the city of Cincinnati but the state of Ohio."
Said senior guard Jaiden Arnold: “For us to able to make it to the state final game, I feel like everybody made it, not just the players on the floor. Us making it this far brought everyone together, including the community back home.”
Aiken trailed by two, 61-59, when junior Antwan Hinton scored on a three-point play, making the foul shot with 25.5 seconds left.
Louisville point guard Beau Siegfried was fouled with 23 seconds left. He made one of two to put Louisville up 3, 62-59.
Aiken senior Tayvon Smith missed a 3-pointer. Hinton got the rebound in the lane and scored a basket while being fouled with 8.1 seconds left.
After a timeout, Hinton missed the free throw as the ball softly hit the rim several times before falling off to the side. Both teams scrambled for the ball and Louisville got the ball via the possession arrow with 4.1 seconds left.
Tate Aljancic made one of two free throws. Jaiden Arnold forced a tie-up to win possession for the Falcons with 1.9 seconds to go. Aiken had to inbound from its defensive baseline and go the length of the court, and James Burnett’s midcourt heave missed.
The Falcons took both of their losses by 2 points, falling at the buzzer to Trotwood-Madison during the season.
Burnett led Aiken with 23 points. He also had six rebounds. Arnold scored 15 points, all in the second half. Senior Antonio Hutcherson Jr. scored 13 points, including three 3-pointers. Hinton scored 7.
Louisville’s roster was a tough task
Aiken was facing a much bigger and more experienced team with eight seniors in the rotation.
Louisville starts five seniors, three of them playing basketball for non-Division I Ohio colleges and one playing football. Besides 6-foot point guard Siegfried, the Leopards were taller than the Falcons at every position.
The Leopards only had two losses to Ohio teams, one to Westerville North, who was playing for the Division II title Friday night. Their other three defeats were to teams from California, Texas and Washington at a holiday tournament in San Diego.
The Leopards showed their depth and experience right away, leading 23-12 after one quarter.
They were perfect from 3-point range, 5 for 5. Starters Siegfried and Aljancic had two apiece. Senior Avery Andrejcik, averaging 7 points per game, came off the bench to make one in the final seconds.
Andrejcik made two more in the second quarter, the last putting Aiken down by 21, 38-17. He finished with 11 points in the first half. Aljancic, a 6-foot-5 Malone commit, ended the first half with 14 points on 4-of-5 shooting.
Senior forward Brayden Gross, a 6-7 senior headed to Walsh and Louisville’s best player, had a steal at midcourt and went the other way for the dunk late in the first quarter. He averages 18 points and 9.3 rebounds.
Louisville outrebounded Aiken by six, 17-11, and only committed two turnovers. Louisville also made seven threes in the first half.
Burnett led the Falcons with 13 points on 6-of-9 shooting, while the rest of the Falcons roster only shot 2 of 12. Arnold was scoreless as he Louisville senior stopper Ashton Marshall guarding him. Louisville head coach Tom Siegfried said Arnold was the 15th future Division I player Marshall had faced this year.
Aljancic finished the game with 17 points. Andrejcik and Beau Siegfried had 14 apiece. Gross had 9 points and 12 rebounds. Black was pleased with the defense on Gross, holding him 10 points under his average, and Siegfried, averaging six assists, had three.
Aiken overwhelmed the Leopards in the second half
Right on cue, the Falcons started their comeback right out of the locker room.
Aiken started on a quick 9-0 run with two 3-pointers by Hutcherson and one by Arnold.
Arnold, Hutcherson and Burnett scored layups to cap a 15-0 run, and Aiken trailed by only four, 38-34, with 3:33 to go in the period.
Aiken forced five turnovers in that stretch after the Leopards only had two in the first half.
Aiken pulled within a single point twice after that in the third quarter. After a basket by Burnett, Siegfried made a three to put Louisville back up by four at 43-39.
Arnold hit a 3-pointer in the final seconds. Louisville got the ball to its frontcourt quickly and missed a shot. Louisville senior Ashton Marshall grabbed the rebound from about 10 feet away and banked in a floater as he was falling away from the basket, and the lead was three, 45-42, heading into the fourth.
“We knew we were the best second-half team in the state,” Black said. “We knew we couldn’t afford to get down to this team by too much. They shot the lights out in the first half, but we knew the 3-point shooting would balance out. I told them ‘You have to prove you’re the best second-half team.’ We proved it, but it wasn’t enough to get the win.”
In the fourth quarter, the Leopards settled down and started making things happen again in the halfcourt. They scored four layups to keep the Falcons at arm’s length, with a drive by Siegfried putting Louisville up five at 54-49, with 2:49 to go.
Arnold had all of his 15 points in the second half.
“(Black) told me I got to go, and I knew I had to,” Arnold said. “I was kind of feeling them out in the first half. Second half, I knew we were going to turn it around because we’ve been doing that all season.”
With two minutes left, Andrejcik scored a layup, then blocked a shot at the other end. He missed a three on offense, but Gross put back the rebound to push the lead back to nine, 58-49.
Burnett hit a three to start the final comeback for the Falcons.
Louisville had been in tight games coming into the final, and had come back from 12 down late to win the state semifinals, so coach Tom Siegfried trusted his guys with a slim lead.
“We knew we were in for a dogfight,” Siegfried said. “(Nineteen) points felt like three at half. I knew they were coming after us. I was going to find out how much grit we had. We knew they were coming. It felt like a winter storm. When a winter storm comes, you know It’s coming but it can still knock you off your feet. That’s what happened.”
Senior salute
Aiken seniors are Antonio Hutcherson Jr., James Burnett Jr., Daeshawn Richardson, Justin Hawkins, Tayvon Smith, Jaiden Arnold, Camerin Scott and Mamadou Kante.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Aiken boys basketball comeback falls short in OHSAA DIII state final
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