Saving the day

Gavin Muhlenkamp made four free throws in the final minute.

But it was a play that didn’t end up on the stat sheet that may have been the biggest.

The sophomore guard’s save of a would-be turnover with 25 seconds left may well have also saved the Jay County High School boys basketball team as it out-fought the visiting Richmond Red Devils down the stretch for a 47-44 victory Saturday.

“That’s just playing with heart,” said JCHS coach Chris Krieg. “It’s like, ‘I want this ball. I want this win.’ We wanted this more than they did. And we went out there down the stretch, that last 30 seconds, we wanted this victory. And the kids went out and got it.”

The Patriots (2-0) trailed by two when they called a timeout with 2:21 left, setting up a drive to the basket by Noah Arbuckle for the game-tying score. Muhlenkamp hit the first of his two sets of free throws with 53.7 seconds left to give them the lead, and they got the ball back again when Gavin Lambert won the battle for a rebound after an Andrew Kroft 3-point miss.

Noah Arbuckle took the inbound pass following another timeout but lost control of the ball in the backcourt as he was swarmed by a double-team. Richmond (0-1) seemed primed to make the steal and have a chance to reclaim the advantage, but Muhlenkamp hurried into the fray, snagged the loose ball and from a seated position managed to make a clean pass to Ethan Dirksen.

“The ball just got tangled up between a whole bunch of people,” Muhlenkamp said. “A couple of us dove. I was just lucky to get the ball and passed it to Ethan Dirksen and we took control from there.”

The ball eventually ended up back in Muhlenkamp’s hands as he was fouled with 11.7 seconds left and proceeded to bury two more free throws.

“I knew I had to hit these for the team because we played so hard the whole game,” said Muhlenkamp, who had missed his only other foul shot — the front end of a one-and-one late in the first half — before draining the four in the waning moments. “Luckily they went in.”

Richmond made it interesting as Tytan Newton scored with 8.3 seconds left to close the gap to 46-44. Arbuckle split a pair of free throws, and after JCHS gave a foul the Red Devils settled for a Newton 3-point try from near half court that fell short as time expired.