HANCEVILLE - Six minutes.
That’s how long it took for everything Belgreen’s boys had worked so hard to accomplish this season—a 25-5 record, an 11-game win streak stretching all the way back to January 15, a second consecutive Class 1A, Area 13 championship leading to a second consecutive sub-regional win and a second consecutive trip to Hanceville—to come unraveled.
Leading No. 6 R.A. Hubbard 33-30 at the half of Friday’s regional semifinal showdown at Tom Drake Coliseum, the eighth-ranked Bulldogs opened the third quarter in fine fashion, fully intent on wiping away the memory of last year’s Sweet 16 loss to South Lamar in the very same building. Junior Mason Bragwell, fresh off a 13-point first half, glided around a Chief defender on Belgreen’s first possession with the kind of agility and body control 6’6 post players aren’t supposed to have, finishing at the rim to extend the lead.
Junior guard Brant Bragwell rebounded a miss by Russell Orr, Jr. on the other end and fired the ball up the floor to senior guard Eli Hiser, whose lefty layup made it 37-30 just 40 seconds into the second half. More than 15 minutes of game time remained, but the Bulldogs—shooting 55 percent from the field at that point and holding their own against Hubbard’s pressure defense—seemed poised to take control and punch their ticket to Tuesday’s regional final.
Over the next six minutes and change, however, it all fell apart.
The Chiefs turned up the heat defensively and hit Belgreen with a quick 9-0 run that took all of 57 seconds, surging to a 39-37 lead on a three-point play by 6’1 sophomore Montoya Kellogg at the 4:36 mark. Things gradually worsened from there, and by the time senior guard Jacob Mayberry made a free throw at the 1:01 mark, the Bulldogs had endured a scoreless stretch of 6:19 during which they missed all seven of their shots from the floor and turned the ball over eight times.
“We tightened up defensively,” said Hubbard coach Milton Conwill, whose team ran off 14 straight points during Belgreen’s drought to go from seven down to seven up and eventually pulled away for a 66-51 win. “We got a couple of steals and a couple of easy baskets, and that helped us get the lead. I don’t think we trailed after that. [They didn’t.] We thought our speed might create some problems for them. They handled it well in the first half, but the press gave them a little more trouble in the second half. I don’t know if fatigue set in or what.
“The press saved our lives again, because we weren’t making very many shots.”
Conwill was right about that. The Chiefs (26-6) hit just 33 percent from the floor in the first half (compared to 52 percent by Belgreen), but they attempted 11 more shots than the Bulldogs (36 to 25). Those extra possessions were largely due to offensive rebounds, of which Hubbard collected eight before the break.
“We got caught up under the goal a few times,” Belgreen coach Clint Isbell said. “We didn’t hold our box-out far enough out away from the basket. They got a lot of those rebounds in the mid-lane area. We just got caught up underneath too much.”
The Bulldogs (25-6) also turned the ball over 12 times in the first half, but it never felt as though they were coming undone against Hubbard’s pressure. That changed in the third quarter, when Belgreen had twice as many turnovers (10) as points scored (five).
“They started out not pressuring us in the third quarter,” Isbell said. “We took a seven-point lead, and maybe we got back on our heels a little bit. We weren’t as aggressive, thinking they might stay back. Then all of a sudden they jumped back in it, and it caught us off guard. That seven-point lead dwindled, and then they went in front. I think they caught us off guard with it.
“They picked up the pressure, too, in the second half. They put together some tighter traps, and they put some bigger guys in the traps to make it harder for us to pass out of them.”
The Chiefs out-scored Belgreen 16-5 in the third and then closed things out efficiently down the stretch, shooting 6-for-7 from the field in the fourth quarter and 8-for-12 from the foul line. The Bulldogs shaved a 16-point deficit down to nine on a few occasions late, but they never truly recovered from that fateful six-minute stretch.
“It’s disappointing,” Brant Bragwell said at the post-game presser. “We relaxed in the third quarter, and it cost us.”
Hubbard worked the offensive glass early, jumping out to a 13-7 lead, but a steal and layup by Mayberry sparked a 10-4 run by Belgreen to close the first quarter. Mason Bragwell scored eight points in the first, the last two of which came off a nice drive and dish from Brant Bragwell and tied the game 17-17 at the end of one.
The 6’6 Bragwell scored five more points in the second quarter and had 13 by halftime on 5-for-8 shooting; he managed only five shot attempts in the second half, making two of them and scoring just four points.
“We did a better job in the second half of pressuring them on the perimeter and making it harder for them to get the ball down to him,” said Conwill, whose team held the Bulldogs to just 7-for-23 shooting in the second half. “They were getting the ball to him a lot in the first half on dribble penetration. We weren’t doing a very good job stopping the drive, but we did a better job taking that away in the second half.”
Bragwell, averaging a team-best 18.5 points per game coming in, finished with 17 points and 12 rebounds on Friday. He shot 7-for-13 from the floor and 3-for-4 from the line, but none of those free throw attempts came in the second half. In fact, Belgreen shot just four free throws in the second half, compared to 21 by Hubbard [they made 14 of them].
Afterward, Isbell said the Chiefs changed tactics defensively against Bragwell after halftime—in a couple of ways.
“They started face-guarding him,” Isbell said, “and it got pretty physical. We didn’t get any calls by any means. There was a lot of cheap stuff going on, grabbing jerseys and things the officials just didn’t see. There were some different things there that could have helped us out, but we weren’t getting [the calls].
“Sometimes it goes that way. Sometimes the officials don’t make calls, and that’s the way it goes. Our guys kept battling and tried not to fall into that [kind of] game.”
Hubbard finished plus-six (33-27) on the boards, with 11 of those rebounds coming on the offensive end. Malik Bynum, a 6’4 junior, grabbed four offensive boards and finished with 14 points on 7-for-8 shooting. Junior guard Riley Evans, Jr. led the Chiefs with 20 points, shooting 7-for-12 from the floor and 5-for-6 from the line. Kellogg added 13 points, and Tyson Garth shot 7-for-10 from the line in the fourth to finish with 11 points.
Hiser finished with 10 points for Belgreen on 4-for-6 shooting, including a pair of threes. Mayberry added seven points, four assists and three steals. Brant Bragwell had six points, four rebounds and three assists, and Seth Taylor scored five points. Payton Scott chipped in with two points, five boards and two assists, and Caleb Pinkard and Jake Taylor also scored two apiece.
In the end, the Bulldogs were left with a sour taste for the second straight year after failing to hold on to a lead in the regional semifinals—10 points in the first half against South Lamar last season, seven points in the third quarter on Friday.
“It sucks,” Mason Bragwell said, “blowing it like that.”
Seniors Scott, Pinkard, Hiser, Mayberry, Jake Taylor, Seth Taylor and Ashlee Britton played their final games at Belgreen on Friday. They’ll be moving on after helping the Bulldogs win 47 games, two county titles and two area championships over the past two seasons. The team’s top two scorers, Mason Bragwell and Brant Bragwell (12.2 points per game), will return next season, looking to lead Belgreen to a third straight regional berth—with a different result in mind.
“These two guys are great players,” Isbell said, seated next to the Bragwells in the interview room after Friday's loss. "We look forward to them coming back. We’ve got a lot of work to do, though. We’re losing seven guys, and they’re seven guys who have contributed a lot. These guys will have to step up and lead the team next year. That’ll be their job, and I think they’re gonna do a fine job of it.”