Beavercreek’s Evan Saylor made his second of two resulting free-throw attempts to break the tie. The Wildcats (1-1, 0-1 GWOC East) tried for a tip-in after Saylor’s foul shot, but their in-bounds pass was blocked, and time ran out.
Carson knows it can serve as a wakeup call. During his senior season at South in 2004, the Wildcats lost their second game of the year to Troy, which was led by future Ohio State center Matt Terwilliger.
South lost twice more that season, with both losses at the hands of eventual state champion Hamilton.
“We lost our second game of the season and we didn’t expect to, but we went on ahead and fought and were 24-3,” Carson said. “We took that early loss and learned from it. You can either take it and learn from it, or you can let this linger. We’re going to take the approach of taking it and growing because of it.”
Springfield was hurt by foul calls at other points in the game. Carson was called for a technical with about a minute left in regulation, apparently for being out of the coaches’ box, though Carson said he didn’t get an explanation from the officiating crew as to what he did.
“I didn’t say anything or do anything,” Carson said. “I really don’t know what that technical was for. I was in the box, right in front of our bench. There were some other odd calls tonight I thought. But this is Beavercreek, and they always get these type of calls. I’ve been a ball boy since ’92, and I’ve always seen our teams not get any benefit of the doubt for any reason here.
“But we had our chances, and we didn’t execute when we had to. Give Beavercreek credit, they came out and they played a very good game. They’re improved. They attacked us, and they got inside, and they took advantage of the opportunities they got. We had mistakes that we have to fix.”
Beavercreek led by 10 points in the first half, but Springfield cut the deficit to one by the end of the third and took the lead in both the fourth quarter and overtime period. Carson was pleased the team fought back after trailing early.
The Beavers (3-0, 1-0) and Wildcats play again in league action on Jan. 31 at Springfield.
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