It was a tall order last night as the ADM Tiger boys basketball team was seeking to split the season series with Carlisle entering hostile territory in the Cats den.
The Tigers were hoping to play the role of spoiler for the Wildcats on their senior night but a slim late fourth quarter lead ballooned into a 14 point victory for Carlisle thanks to very timely free throws. ADM would flirt with the lead all night but in the end could not suppress the Wildcat offense loosing 84-70 in a high scoring affair.
The game started off in favor of ADM using the unmatched energy from Tajen Ross to post up a 20-19 lead after one quarter thanks in large part to the senior’s three straight made field goal shots to start the game as well as another buzzer beating three by Jared Sapp. ADM actually out paced Carlisle throughout the first half of play but despite shooting 9 of 16 from the floor, Carlisle used the energy of the hometown crowd to connect on a pair of late three’s to put the Wildcats up at the half 39-37. Tajen Ross would be the undisputed catalyst for the Tigers in the first half with 25 points.
The Tigers would continue the back and forth play with the Wildcats to start the second half but couldn’t find enough consistency in the scoring to grab much of a lead for long entering the fourth and final quarter still down by one 59-58. Unfortunately for ADM, the late game scoring surge last Friday night was almost completely absent in the fourth quarter last night where ADM found an extremely cold shooting spell while defensively unable to stop the Wildcats as Carlisle out dueled ADM 25-12 in the fourth quarter. The Tigers had just 8 points throughout all but the final 1:23 left to go in the ball game, all compliments of Payton Conrad who was the catalyst in the second half that Tajen Ross was in the first half notching 20 of his 22 points int he second half alone. ADM rarely had a lead in the final stanza and while trying to conserve clock in the late goings, they sent a combination of three Wildcats to the free thrown line and coming away with 15 fourth quarter points from the charity stripe to seal the win the old fashion way.
Not a whole lot of balance in the Tiger scoring as Ross and Conrad did the bulk of the honors with Ross connecting on a phenomenal 33 points on the night followed by a 22 point game from Payton Conrad. Meanwhile Carlisle became the very meaning of balanced scoring with 6 Wildcats scoring in double figures headlined by Tommy Donovan’s 19 point night, 9 of which came in the fourth quarter to go along with a team leading 6 rebounds .
The loss puts the Tigers back to a 10-8 overall mark and a 7-6 conference record while Carlisle improves to 10-7 overall and 8-5 inside the conference. Next up for ADM is another road contest as they enter into their final RRC game of the regular season where they’ll square off in Boone Friday night.