Gallagher beats Jaguars in final seconds
By Jose Negron
jnegron@yourmvi.com
With the game tied at 56-56, Laurel Highlands standout Rodney Gallagher fired a deep jumper from the corner over the reach of Thomas Jefferson’s Evan Berger with just 1.2 seconds to go in a Section 1-5A showdown Friday.
The Jaguars freshman did all he could to disrupt the late-game heave, but Gallagher still found a way to showcase his clutch gene by nailing the game-winner and giving LH a 58-56 victory over the hosts from TJ.
Gallagher netted a game-high 22 points for LH, which has now won eight straight games.
“I thought Berger had his hand right in his face and defended it well,” TJ head coach Dom DeCicco said. “(Rodney) just made a better play.”
The Jaguars (15-4, 5-3) led by five heading into the fourth quarter before the Mustangs (10-3, 8-0) came crawling back in the final eight minutes.
A pair of free throws from Keondre Deshields and a bucket by Gallagher cut the LH deficit to one, but Berger countered with three of his team-high 14 points to push TJ’s lead to 51-47 with 5:37 to go.
The Jaguars struggled with turnovers in the fourth as they committed five, including three during a 5-0 run that put LH ahead 52-51 with over four minutes remaining.
Neither team scored for nearly three minutes before Gallagher and Brandon Davis each hit a pair of free throws to extend the lead to 56-51 with just over a minute to go.
TJ picked up a quick bucket on an Aidan Kelly layup to make it a three-point game before a Davis miss led to a three-point play on the other end by Jake Pugh, tying the game at 56-56 with 37.1 seconds on the clock.
In the final 30 seconds, LH maintained possession and called a pair of timeouts leading to Gallagher’s heroics.
“That’s a tough loss,” DeCicco said. “I thought the kids played their hearts out, but you can’t turn the ball over at the end like we did. That’s what killed us.”
TJ held two separate leads in the first half, including a two-point edge with less than a minute to go in the first quarter.
The Jaguars ultimately went down 18-17 after the opening frame and an early 9-3 second-quarter run by LH pushed its lead to 27-20 with over four and a half minutes to go.
After a timeout by DeCicco, TJ rallied back with an 8-3 run behind four points apiece from Ethan Dunsey and Shawn McSwiggen.
The short spurt cut TJ’s deficit to 30-28 with under two minutes left before Gallagher scored five of his 11 second-quarter points to give LH a 35-28 edge at halftime.
“I told our kids the better defensive team was going to win,” DeCicco said. “LH is really talented and we had chances, but they made plays when they needed to.”
The Jaguars came out of the locker room with a purpose as they went on to outscore the Mustangs by a 20-8 margin in the third quarter, holding Gallagher scoreless in the process.
TJ’s monster performance in the frame was fueled by a 9-0 run over a two and a half minute span that pushed the momentum in its favor with a 39-38 lead. In the final 2:40, TJ outscored LH, 9-5, to take a 48-43 lead into the fourth.
Gallagher found a way to score all over the court, driving to the basket for contested layups, hitting foul shots when necessary and draining threes when given space to operate. Gallagher, who was joined in double figures by Davis with 16 points, finished with three 3-pointers in the win.
“Gallagher gets a lot of his points in transition and when you take a bad shot, that’s like a turnover and they get out and they go,” DeCicco said. “Our goal was to make him shoot threes, but he made them tonight.”
Dunsey finished with 11 points and Kelly scored all 10 of his points in the second half to join Berger in double figures for TJ, which hosts Trinity Tuesday.
“This will be a great learning experience for them. We’ll watch that film and we have to get better from it,” DeCicco said. “I think we’re a very good team and we’ll see what happens.”
