CENTRALIA - Junior guard Grant Nichols buried a 3-pointer as time expired, punctuating the New Bloomfield Wildcats' comeback from a 22-point first-half deficit in Friday night's dramatic 62-59 win over the Centralia Panthers.
New Bloomfield - which was down 45-34 entering the fourth quarter - got the ball back with 7 seconds to play and Nichols responded with the climactic shot just before the buzzer sounded.
"Grant just pulled up and knocked it down in the (Centralia) kid's face," Wildcats head coach Tim Gilmore said. "It was a big shot by him."
New Bloomfield (6-4) trailed 32-22 at halftime, but wiped out its 11-point deficit going into the final quarter by outscoring Centralia 18-4 over the last 8 minutes. Freshman forward Jak Kitchens tallied six of his eight points in the period.
"We did a great job of getting the ball inside to him," Gilmore said. "We were settling for 3-pointers early on and shying away from the basket, but we started converting layups by getting to the gaps with our penetration.
"Defensively, we didn't give up any second-chance points; we limited them to one shot."
Coming off a decisive 70-40 non-conference blitz of Belle at home Thursday night, New Bloomfield had trouble getting jump-started Friday night. The Wildcats found themselves behind 18-6 at the end of the first quarter and were eventually down by 22 points before closing the gap to 10 at the break.
"Our energy level was down," Gilmore said of the first half. "We were very complacent on defense, not moving our feet, and on offense we were really short on everything we shot. We were rushing stuff and settling for the first shot."
Nichols finished with 17 points as the only New Bloomfield player to reach double figures. Junior guard Tyler Fennewald was next with nine points.
"The kids just showed some mental toughness," Gilmore said. "It's nice to see that you can win when you're not on your "A' game."
Logan Armontrout countered with 17 points to lead Centralia, while Jonathan Randolph had 12.
In Thursday night's non-conference triumph over Belle, the Wildcats pulled away by outscoring the Tigers 38-19 in the second half. New Bloomfield went into halftime with a 32-21 advantage, then pulled away by outscoring Belle 24-11 in the third quarter to stretch its lead to 56-32.
Junior guard Derek Shikles connected for a game-high 17 points to steer three players in double figures for the Wildcats. Kitchens also tallied 14 points and Nichols contributed 13.
New Bloomfield is seeded fifth in this week's South Callaway Invitational Tournament and will clash with No. 4 Montgomery County in the first round at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. The game will be played at the high school.
"Montgomery County does a heckuva job with its pressure and wants to speed you up," Gilmore said. "We'll work on our press-breaker, but we have to eliminate turnovers.
"We want to play quick, but we can't rush."