Boys Basketball: Eagles beat buzzer, Bedford in thrilling finish to league schedule
The Skyline boys’ basketball team closed out the SEC regular season in dramatic fashion with a 52-51 win on a buzzer-beater at Bedford on Tuesday night.
Skyline scored early to take a 6-2 lead and then became flat defensively and on the boards. Bedford was out hustling Skyline and attacking the basket to take a 16-11 first quarter lead.
Skyline would step up the defensive and rebounding effort in the second quarter and hold Bedford to one field goal and eight points but continued to struggle to convert shots near the basket and from behind the arc.
The game was tied at 24-24 at halftime.
In the third quarter, Bedford was able to run some longer offensive possessions and Skyline continued to find baskets hard to come by against the Monroe packed in 1-3-1. Bedford had a 38-35 lead going into the fourth quarter.
Skyline would mix up some full court pressure defense to speed the game up and was able to convert some baskets in the open court led by Ish Abdul Aziz who scored 10 fourth-quarter points.
With game tied with 1 min left, Bedford would work to try and hold for the last shot, but with about 30 seconds left, Lucas Lynch poked the ball away and passed to Abdul-Aziz who scored a layup with about 25 seconds left.
Bedford would come down and miss a three-point shot and Skyline rebounded and got fouled, Bedford’s sixth. Skyline successfully inbounded against pressure and got fouled and missed the front end of the one and one.
Bedford got the rebound and pushed the ball up the court and found Griffith Wolf who made his fourth triple of the game to put Bedford up one point with 6.8 seconds left.
Skyline would inbound the ball to Abdul-Aziz who would dribble up the side and then attack the middle to get into the paint. He then scored on a contested floater in the paint at the buzzer to give Skyline the 52-51 win.
Skyline finishes 10-4 in the SEC RED conference in second place.
Sam Koelling had 14 points, Abdul-Aziz scored 12 points, Will Gardner added 10 points and Lucas Lynch scored 6 points. Ben Stille and James Harrison Jr each had four points.
Bedford was led in scoring by Andrew Hollinger with 17 points and Wolf with 14 points.
Skyline will host Detroit Loyola on Tuesday, March 1.
