The KR senior drove the length of the floor, hitting a layup with .6 seconds left to lift the Cougars to a 42-41 victory over Jonathan Alder in Central Buckeye Conference Kenton Trail Division action on Friday night in Springfield.
“To be quite honest, it’s a play I found online, we’ve worked on it a few times in practice and it’s literally everybody get out of the way and let Logan go to the rack and that’s exactly what he did,” Smith said. “We have options on the wing if we needed them, but his whole intent was head down and go score and that’s exactly what he did. He put it in and it was just a huge shot for us.”
Senior Canye Rogan scored a game-high 12 points as Kenton Ridge won its 10th straight game, improving to 13-2 overall and 5-1 in the division. The Cougars remained in a first-place tie with Urbana (9-4, 5-1), which beat Bellefontaine 69-51 on Friday night.
“It definitely helps us in the rankings,” said Fyffe, who finished with nine points. “It just shows that we have more heart than every other team around here, that we want it more than them.”
KR led 20-18 at the half, but Alder (8-6, 2-4) outscored the Cougars 14-5 in the third quarter to take a 32-28 lead into the final eight minutes.
Trailing 36-31 with about five minutes remaining, Canye Rogan hit three straight free throws and Braden Smith nailed a layup to the game with 3:29 remaining.
KR senior Ckai Rogan hit a free throw and Canye Rogan followed with a steal and layup to give the Cougars a 39-36 lead.
“We’ve got a team with six seniors and every one of them stepped up,” Brian Smith said. “I know I can look these kids in the eye at timeouts and know they’re ready to play and they’re ready to go.”
Alder tied the score at 39 with about two minutes remaining on a 3-pointer by junior Noah Hess.
Sophomore Xavier White hit one of two free throws to give KR a 40-39 lead with 38.4 seconds. Hess hit two free throws to give his team the lead with seven seconds remaining, but the Cougars would get one more chance to win the game.
Fyffe inbounded the ball to White, who immediately passed it back to him and got out of the way. The senior took two dribbles with his right hand, crossed over to his left hand at the 3-point line and drove to the hoop through the outstretched arms of two Pioneer defenders, laying the ball in with his left hand.
“I was surprised, but I knew if I went hard, I had it,” Fyffe said.
The play is designed to split the defense and keep the defenders glued to their man, Brian Smith said.
“When you do that, kids tend to just take off and go chase the open man because they know they don’t want their guy to score and they forget that the guy with the ball is the most important,” he said.
“(Fyffe) went full speed and it’s dead down the center,” Brian Smith said. “It may work once a year and it worked. He just made a tremendous shot.”
KR travels to Clark County rival Shawnee on Tuesday before hosting Urbana in a key CBC Kenton Trail game next Friday.
“We’re just on a tremendous streak and we want to keep it going,” he said.
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