How MBA stunned JPII in double overtime to reach TSSAA basketball DII-AA state semifinals
HENDERSONVILLE — Montgomery Bell Academy senior guard Collin O'Neal panted and put his hands on his hips, completely out of breath after celebrating a wild, if not unlikely, victory with his teammates.
MBA trailed by seven points with 58 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter before rallying to stun Pope John Paul Preparatory School, 80-78, in double overtime of the TSSAA basketball DII-AA state tournament quarterfinals on Saturday.
'I just ran out and found Kev (MBA senior guard Kevin Die') in the celebration. We knew this was our last year together. We've been playing together since we were 10-11 years old,' O'Neal said. 'It feels amazing. We've been talking about this since last summer.'
MBA (23-5) captured its third state semifinal appearance in five years and will play either Briarcrest, Ensworth or Knoxville Webb on Friday in Cookeville.
Junior guard Trey Pearson scored a game-high 34 points for JPII (27-5), which was denied its second consecutive semifinal appearance. Pearson had two empty free-throw trips late in regulation and JPII went 9-of-18 from the line in the fourth quarter.
O'Neal, a Furman signee and the DII-AA Middle Region player of the year, finished with 21 points and scored seven points in the fourth quarter, going 5-of-6 from the line.
It was one of the most improbable rallies MBA coach Kevin Anglin could remember from one of his teams.
'We were just managing the game one possession at a time,' Anglin said. 'We score and it gets to five. They go down and miss a free throw, then all of a sudden, it's three. With every possession belief started to creep back in. 'Relentless resolve,' that was the phrase I kept saying to them. Just, we're never going to quit.'
MBA had to play without O'Neal after he fouled out in the first overtime and kept finding itself playing from behind.
Die' made two free throws with 1.3 seconds left to force a second overtime. Mill Chapman scored five points on back-to-back possessions in the final OT to give MBA a 70-66 lead with 1:12 remaining, and the Big Red never trailed again. Chapman finished with a team-high 24 points.
PCA: How redemption in TSSAA basketball playoffs fuels PCA boys entering DII-A semifinals
'As soon as we got to overtime, I grabbed the guys and said, 'we've got this,'' said Die', who finished with 11 points. 'Coach preaches perseverance all the time. We're not a one-man team, we're not a two-man team. Even when we got down, we just stayed and fought and gave ourselves a chance to win at the end of the game.'
Reach sports writer Tyler Palmateer at tpalmateer@tennessean.com and on the X platform, formerly Twitter, @tpalmateer83.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: TSSAA basketball: MBA defeats JPII in double OT to reach state semis
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