:quality(70):focal(1408x912:1418x922)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/shawmedia/EQROAJ4LAZBU3NNVZLGPXIRP44.JPG)
GENOA – Through three quarters, Josh Bunting was struggling as his Genoa-Kingston team was battling back and forth with Sandwich in a nonconference game Thursday.
But the senior guard got red hot in the fourth quarter, scoring 12 points and making all of his shots from the floor and the free-throw line, helping the Cogs pull away for a 52-41 win over the Indians.
“I came in locked in completely,” Bunting said. “My team found a way to get me open. I want to thank my team for that. They just found fast-break opportunities, and when we slowed the ball down, we got good looks too. I feel like I capitalized off the good looks.”
The Indians (11-7) led 32-25 late in the third quarter after the Cogs went through their second four-plus minute scoring drought of the game. But an Amir Mullins 3-pointer late in the quarter put the Cogs (7-10) ahead for good.
But it was still a battle for most of the fourth quarter. Bunting entered the quarter shooting 1 for 7 from the floor and 2 for 4 from the foul line, but he needed only 15 seconds to drain a 3 and give the Cogs their biggest lead of the game, 37-33.
Sandwich got within 43-41 after John Krueger connected on a putback with 2:41 left, but those were the last points of the game for the Indians. Bunting hit a layup less than 10 seconds later, then he and the Cogs scored the last seven points of the game at the free-throw line.
“We’ve been challenging him all year: Be mentally tough. Be mentally tough,” Genoa-Kingston coach Griffin McNeal said. “I think tonight he really stepped up and did it. He missed some free throws early in the game. It’s easy to get frustrated and let that get to you, but he came up clutch and made some free throws when we really, really needed him to.”
Bunting finished with 16 points and three steals, while Traven Atterberry led the Cogs with 17 points. Hayden Hodgson had a team-best seven rebounds.
Genoa-Kingston didn’t score until more than four minutes into the game, and the Indians led by as much as eight in the first half. G-K eventually got the score tied at 12, and the game went back and forth until the end of the third.
“We started off pretty slow, and then during the second half we came out pretty strong. We came out locked in,” Bunting said. “We all played as a team. We slowed the ball down – great ball movement all around.”
Sandwich coach Kevin Kozan said his team is struggling at the start of the new year, having lost earlier this week against Ottawa.
“Bad. Really bad. That’s two games in a row,” Kozan said. “We couldn’t shoot free throws. We look like a JV team right now. That’s really how it is. I don’t know what it is. We’re timid to shoot, and we were 11-5 coming into the new year. It’s just frustrating. We’re a better team than what we’ve been showing. We just have to get the pieces back together. ... I love those guys in there, but we’ve got some work to do.”
Evan Gottlieb led the Indians with 13 points, Chance Lange added 12, and Owen Sheley had 10 points and eight rebounds.
Kozan said his team played its best basketball of the season at the Plano tournament last week, and he hopes the team’s struggles are just due to getting back into the daily grind of the regular season after a couple of weeks in holiday tournament mode.
“I hope that’s it. That’s what I’m going to blame it on,” Kozan said. “We literally just got done playing our best basketball all year, going 3-1. ... We’re going from playing our best basketball to – to be honest – playing our worst. But there’s 13 games left. There’s a lot to fix, but we’ll get there.”