4th quarter rally results in overtime triumph for Mid-Prairie

WELLMAN - The third quarter of Tuesday's high school boys basketball game belonged to Tipton. The fourth quarter of the River Valley Conference battle belonged to Mid-Prairie. The question of who would own the overtime was answered quickly when Tom Butters scored within the first 10 seconds of the extra period. The end result was a 71-67 victory for the Mid-Prairie Golden Hawks.

'When you win a quarter like that to get the game to overtime, I knew we had this,” Mid-Prairie head coach Daren Lambert said. 'I could just see it in their eyes.”

Mid-Prairie led 14-11 after the first quarter, but trailed 23-20 at halftime. It was tied at 58 by the end of regulation. The Golden Hawks went on a 9-2 run to start the overtime. Tipton hit a late 3-pointer to make the final score seem closer that it actually was. Butters owned the paint and the glass, finishing with 17 rebounds and 16 points. He averages 14.2 points and 12.3 rebounds a game.

Cale Robertson went for 19 points. He averages 13.8 points a game.

Brad Tornow averages 4.7 points a game and almost six assists. He had seven assists in the game. His points, however, made a huge difference especially in the second half when he scored 16 of his 18 total.

'Coaches kept telling me to make them foul, so once I did that a couple times, they started giving me the gap between the screen guy and the defender, so I just went right through there,” Tornow said.

Tornow was 6 of 7 on free throws and 6 of 8 from the field.

'They did not want to help off of Tom too much, so it opened up the lane for Brad,” Lambert said. 'When Brad turned it on, the other guys fed off of his success.”

The Golden Hawks fed off of Tornow to overcome the 48-36 deficit Tipton owned at the start of the fourth quarter.

'There are no 12-point plays,” Lambert said. 'We had to get stops.”

One of those stops seemed to start the comeback. Butters blocked a shot (one of his five in the game) with 6 minutes, 23 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter and Tornow scored at the other end.

It was still a 10-point deficit with under 6 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, but a 12-2 run tied the game with 1:54 remaining in the fourth quarter. Tornow had two field goals during that run and Robertson had seven points, including a corner trey on an assist from Tornow that had the Golden Hawks within two.

'That was big,” Lambert said.

Butters made two free throws with under a minute left for the first Mid-Prairie lead since 18-17 with about 4 minutes left in the first half.

In the huddle during the break before the fourth quarter, Lambert reminded his team they had been in this situation before.

'They have proven they can be resilient,” Lambert said. 'Our defensive intensity wasn't there, but it showed up in the last 4 minutes regulation. In the fourth quarter and then the whole entire overtime, we did the little things like cutting down on the second chances and being in gaps.”

A lot of times a team runs out of steam when rallying from double digits. That did not happen.

'I just knew when we got into the overtime,” Lambert said. 'We had the momentum.”

There was was a big change in the talk between regulation and overtime and the one before the fourth quarter.

'The excitement level was the difference in the huddle,” Lambert said.

After Butters gave the Hawks the lead in overtime and got the rebound on the other end, a deliberate offense resulted in Butters passing out of the paint to Dominick Pickard in the corner for a 3-pointer and a 5-point lead.

'The biggest play was when we were running through our offense and being patient and we had five or six passes before Dominic hits that three in the corner,” Lambert said. 'I was very pleased with how everyone stepped up. Chaz (Patterson) came in and he did his job.”

When Brad turned it on, the other guys fed off of his success.

'The excitement level was the difference in the huddle,” Lambert said. 'They fought so hard that there was no way they were going to let it slip away.”

'We came together as a team,” Tornow said. 'We were attacking the rim. We were patient on offense.”

While Lambert was happy to get the win, he had a message for his team.

'I told them if you can do it the last eight minutes, there's no reason why we shouldn't do in the first three quarters. They started believing in each other and saw what was working and that they could do more. It was a fun night.”

Ethan Trimpe added eight boards and six points.

For Tornow, the win was extra gratifying.

'Tipton is always the one win I want to get. I have seen those guys in AAU and we play them twice a year. I just want to get them.”

Tipton is 7-6 overall, 6-6 RVC. Mid-Prairie is 8-6 overall, 7-6 in the league and play at No. 6 (Class 2A) Camanche Friday.