Senior center Wyatt Heidle and Roane County played Community in a TSSAA Class AA state quarterfinal at Murphy Center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on Thursday, March 18, 2021. The Yellowjackets won 75-64 in overtime. (Photo by Danny Parker)
By JESSE SMITHEY
MURFREESBORO — This indelible season, this historic run for the Kingston boys’ basketball team looked to be nearing a disappointing end entering the fourth quarter of a Class AA state quarterback Thursday morning.
Not only were star players Harper Neal and Colby Raymer battling foul trouble, but Kingston’s deficit was also in the double digits and Raymer got hurt early in the fourth quarter, an injury that — at first glance — looked serious enough to have ended Raymer’s season on the spot.
But to watch the Yellow Jackets play in 2020-21 is to get a nightly tutorial on grit, will and team chemistry from the players — and the energy they get from the groundswell of community support.
It isn’t just players playing a game.
It’s a four-quarter Kingston experience.
And in Thursday’s case, the Yellow Jackets needed more than four.
Getting the program’s first state tournament win since 1979, Kingston rallied down the stretch and then knocked off Community, 75-64, in overtime at Middle Tennessee State’s Murphy Center.
“We have a bunch of people who have traveled up here with us, who drove two hours to watch us play,” said Raymer. “Waking up this morning and going out there and playing and nothing going right (at first), you could look up there and see Kingston people (in the stands). We don’t want to let them go home.
“We’re going to be ready to play tomorrow and keep going.”
Rocky Top Waffles is a proud sponsor of 5Star Preps’ coverage of the TSSAA state basketball championships.
Kingston will take on tournament-favorite Jackson South Side (24-1) in a Class AA semifinal at 4 p.m. Central time on Friday.
The chances of Kingston getting to that next round appeared bleak Thursday, though.
The Yellow Jackets (27-5) played the final 1 minute, 21 seconds, of regulation and the four minutes of overtime without Neal (23.1 points per game) after he fouled out on a charge.
And after spending some time in the recessed hallways of the Murphy Center with the team trainer, Raymer re-emerged to finish off the game midway through the fourth on a gimpy leg.
Still, his mid-range jumper with 60 seconds left in regulation gave Kingston a 59-58 lead, this all after the Yellow Jackets trailed by as many as 13 in the second half.
“I was more scared than anything,” said Raymer of his injury. He answered questions in the postgame with a bag of ice wrapped to his lower left leg.
“My leg feels like it’s about to fall off. But we stretched it out a little bit, and I got back out there playing. I didn’t want to go home.”
Clinging to a two-point lead, 60-58, in the final possession of regulation, Kingston knocked the ball loose from Community. But the Vikings corralled it, bumped a pass over to an open Stratton Lovorn by the goal for a game-tying layup with 1 second left.
That kind of blow, following such an emotional rally, might have deflated most teams.
Kingston only got more charged up.
Wyatt Heidle (eight points, eight rebounds) gave Kingston a 62-60 lead on a putback score and then teammate Nathan McNelley (eight points) stole the inbounds pass from Community and laid it in for a 64-60 lead.
From there, the fouls that had piled up — on both teams, to that point — came back to haunt Community more than Kingston. The Yellow Jackets went 8-f0r-8 at the foul line in a 1:16 stretch that altered its lead to 72-61 with 1:02 remaining in the extra period.
All told, Kingston shot 41 free throws Thursday and made 31, guard Brady Luttrell connecting on eight of 10.
Community went 13-for-20. The aggressiveness Kingston showed to drive into the paint paid off in the foul-shot discrepancy, not to mention the effort on the boards, where the Yellow Jackets out-hustled a longer Community squad for a 46-33 rebounding advantage.
Even Community coach Robbie Davis called Kingston the bigger aggressor of the two teams in the second half.
“For us, I tell (the players) every night: ‘If we just rebound it and guard it a little bit, we’ll figure something out on offense,'” said Kingston coach Colt Narramore. “We had so many big rebounds in that second half, that stretch-run we made.
“And those rebounds lead to run outs (in transition) and helps with our pace. Every time you see us win the rebounding margin, I’d say we’re going to win — because, it just pushes the pace for us that much better.”
Raymer finished with a team-high 21 points and went 12-for-16 at the line. Not bad considering he spent a majority of the first half on the bench after getting whistled for two early fouls. That hampered the Kingston offense in the first half.
Kingston shot 34.6 percent from the floor and got out-rebounded through the first two quarters.
Sheer will kept the YJs close. Bryson Boles’ 3-point play and a 3 by Neal stopped Community runs in the second quarter.
Raymer returned for the last couple minutes of the second quarter and buried a pair of free throws to get Kingston within 31-26 with 1:42 left in the half. Then Boles cut the deficit to three about 30 seconds later. He finished with 11 points and Neal 15.
But Kingston dug a deeper hole for itself in the third when Raymer and Neal picked up their third fouls and the team shot 21.4 percent in the quarter.
That only set the stage for the improbable rally, though — and extended Kingston’s magical season at hand.
The Yellow Jackets have made history at every step of the postseason, ending lengthy droughts of either district or region championships. Their win Thursday was the program’s first since March 20, 1979, in this their first trip to state since 1991.
“I’ve had a front-row seat to this for a long time,” said Narramore. “This last six weeks, that’s what it looked like — a bunch of guys who love each other, that want to keep playing, that want to keep playing together. That are super, super unselfish.
“And, somehow, find a way to win games.”
5STAR PHOTOS pres. by FCA: Kingston Yellow Jackets vs. Community (2021 Class AA state tournament)