Oak Ridge ruins Scott City's homecoming

The final 3 minutes, 30 seconds of Friday night's boys basketball game between Scott City and Oak Ridge featured seven lead changes, 16 combined points and no advantage bigger than one point for either team until just 3.5 seconds remained.

That was when Oak Ridge senior Brett Thomas made the first of four free throws in the closing seconds to help lead the Blue Jays to a 68-63 win on the host Rams' homecoming.

Thomas' full-court drive with 42 seconds to go gave Oak Ridge a 64-63 lead, and the Blue Jays held Scott City scoreless for the remainder of the game despite not taking possession again until more than 30 seconds later.

Oak Ridge freshman Ryan Below ended Scott City's long final possession with a steal from Zach Cotner as the Rams tried to move the ball inside with about 8 seconds to go.

"I just got the steal off the pass and tripped on the ground or something and the guy was on my back was the next thing I knew," Below said. "As soon as I got that ball, I wasn't going to let it go."

Almost five seconds passed before a scrum on the floor ended with a foul being called on Cotner, who then immediately was whistled for a technical foul by a second official.

Below missed both of his free throws, but Thomas sank both shots resulting from the technical, which also allowed Oak Ridge to maintain possession.

"Defensively, that's mainly why he's on the floor," Oak Ridge coach Adam Stoneking said about Below. "He's such an athlete -- can get off the floor, can get up real high, real quick and so he gets a lot of rebounds, gets a lot of blocked shots.

"It was a great job by him because we just talked about not fouling and making sure if we got a steal it was a ball that we could take without fouling."

The 6-foot-3 Below, who has moved into a spot in the starting lineup after coming off the bench earlier this season, was pretty good on the offensive end as well, scoring 21 points.

"It's just small things," Stoneking said about Below's progression. "Any time with a freshman at the beginning of the year, you're worried about should I be here on the varsity level and so they try to prove themselves.

"He's been grounded all year and finally I could tell just after Christmas he got over that hump to where in practice you could tell he was one of the better players on the court."

Thomas, who regularly fed Below the ball inside Friday night, said it took time for the Blue Jays to get comfortable playing together.

"I remember open gyms this summer we struggled," Thomas said. "We didn't know which way we were going and he wasn't quite used to the speed of the game, but right now we're really starting to get a feel for each other on the floor. He gets where he's supposed to be and he finishes at the goal. He's just really fun to play with."

Thomas finished with a team-leading 22 points for Oak Ridge while teammate Caleb Elam also finished in double digits with 13 points.

Cotner led all scorers with 25 points.

Oak Ridge outscored Scott City 14-1 from the free-throw line. The Rams were just 1 of 8 from the line and missed the front end of two 1-and-1 attempts in the final 3:04.

"It's a big win definitely, very big for us," Thomas said. "Scott City's been slowly improving all year and they're becoming a really good team, and we knew coming in it was going to be their homecoming.

"We're starting to get a little momentum rolling, practices are starting to roll better and we're starting to have better chemistry as a team. It was just a big win, big emotional builder going in to the conference tournament."

Oak Ridge 16 14 19 19 -- 68

Scott City 16 17 15 15 -- 63

OAK RIDGE (68) -- Stephen Bolen 2, Caleb Elam 13, Jacob Light 6, Ryan Below 21, Kyle Rohde 4, Brett Thomas 22. FG 26, F 14, FT 14-23. (3-pointers: Elam 1, Thomas 1. Fouled out: none)

SCOTT CITY (63) -- Logan Henson 8, Landon Robert 8, Jesse Sanders 7, Hunter Cox 6, Zach Cotner 25, Justin Modglin 9. FG 27, F 21, FT 1-8. (3-pointers: Henson 2, Robert 2, Sanders 1, Modglin 3. Fouled out: none)