Lafayette boys fall in district championship
By Jacob Meikel
The Lafayette boys basketball team’s season came to an end on Saturday at the hands of Maryville 63-51 in the Class 4 District 16 championship.
Some late heroics against Benton in the semifinals got the Fighting Irish into the district championship game on their home floor, but a talented Maryville team would aim to spoil the party.
The Spoofhounds would strike first blood when junior Peyton McCollum found senior Delton Davis cutting down the middle of the paint. The 2-0 early lead for Maryville eventually ballooned to 5-0 after Davis established himself early with an and-one layup that gave him five quick points to start the game following a converted free throw.
The hole created by Maryville would be one the Fighting Irish just could not dig themselves out of the entire game.
Despite not seeing the lead at any point in the contest, Lafayette would shrug off the hot start for Maryville by finding itself down 15-12 after one quarter. But just when Lafayette looked to be in the right position to take the lead, Maryville would switch to another gear and made the deficit even greater at 32-22 at half. With precise offensive execution in the second half, the Maryville lead would get up to as much as 20 points before Lafayette would make one final run in the final minutes with a barrage of three pointers, but the Fighting Irish couldn’t cut the lead to single digits. Lafayette junior and leading scorer Antonio Williams would eventually foul out in the fourth quarter, making the chance at a comeback that much tougher.
The Fighting Irish end their season at 16-13 and are expected to lose four seniors to graduation in Ty Nance, Cornell White, Ethan Zeit and Drake Losson.
