The Brownwood Lions put forth their best performance of the District 6-4A campaign Tuesday night at Warren Gym, but fell a bucket shy of their first league victory as the Graham Steers escaped with a 56-54 win.
Trailing by five points with 58 seconds left, Carson Noe’s driving bucket brought the Lions with a three-pointer, 54-51. Brownwood then denied Graham on the ensuing possession, and Hayden Noe drained the game-tying three-pointer with 24 seconds remaining.
The Steers were again turned away on the next trip down the floor, but Ty Thompson grabbed an offensive rebound and scored on the putback to stake Graham to a 56-54 advantage with eight seconds to go.
Brownwood’s final trip down the floor came up empty as Casey Freibel’s three-point heave from near midcourt was off target as the final buzzer sounded.
“I’m super proud of our guys and I’m going to tell them that and tell them how close that one was,” Lions head coach Will Parker said immediately after the game. “That’s tough to hear in the locker room after this, but this speaks volumes to who those guys are. To be able to come back in the fifth district game and play like that and play together and be physical against a real physical team, there’s so many things to talk about as far as how proud I am of them. But we’ll go back and figure out exactly what we could have done.”
The loss drops the Lions to 10-21 overall and 0-5 in league play with three games to go, as Brownwood has fallen in seven straight games dating back to their last victory on Jan. 3 over Coleman.
Graham, meanwhile, improved to 3-2 against 6-4A foes and 16-14 for the regular season.
Brownwood trailed 15-13 after one quarter, 26-24 at halftime and faced a 39-31 deficit at one point in the third period before closing the gap to 41-37 heading to the fourth.
There, a bucket from Morsello Hooker and three-pointer by Ross Strasner pushed the Lions in front 42-41. Graham responded with six of the next seven points to reclaim a 47-43 edge, a lead the Steers maintained until the 24-second mark of the fourth period.
Hooker led the Lions with 14 points trailed by eight each from Friebel and Strasner, seven from Hayden Noe, six from Carson Noe, four from Weston Wolf, two from Hayden Proffitt and one point from Noah Pyle.
Graham received 14 points from Thompson, 12 from Keion Shead and 10 from Cash Bowen.
The Lions are back in action at 7:15 p.m. Friday at Stephenville (15-13, 2-2), which had a bye Tuesday.
“Hopefully we’ll continue with this same effort Friday at Stephenville,” Parker said. “It’s always a battle with those guys. We’re going to have to give them everything we’ve got.”
