Mountaineers drop Mustangs

MADISON — With Madison County entering Saturday night’s game with an undefeated record and a No. 1 ranking in Group A courtesy of the Associated Press, Monticello looked to knock the Mountaineers off their lofty perch. Like Madison’s previous 14 opponents, the Mustangs left with a loss, 66-52.

On a night that saw junior forward Logan Terrell score his 1,000th point as a Mountaineer, a win just wasn’t in the cards for Monticello. Terrell knocked down a short jumper on the milestone play to give Madison a 45-41 lead. After a brief timeout to honor Terrell with a game ball, the two teams resumed play. It was all Madison County (15-0) from there.

Fueled by a raucous, standing-room-only crowd, the Mountaineers rolled off a 15-3 run following Terrell’s bucket that turned a close game into a runaway. The scoring spurt was capped off by back-to-back dunks from junior David Falk courtesy of lob passes from Jerel Carter.

“It’s just an adrenaline rush when you see it coming,” said Falk of his high-wire act. “Jerel got the ball to me and my teammates set a great pick on the first dunk.”

Falk’s second flush in less than a minute gave Madison its largest lead of the night at 16 points and nearly tore the roof off of the gym. While the fireworks happened on the offensive end, the Mountaineers’ swarming defense and rebounding intensity picked up in the fourth quarter to help hold the Mustangs at bay.

“We forced them into some bad shots and rebounded on the defensive end. They took us out of our offense tonight but we settled down a little bit in the second half,” said Madison coach Tim Taylor. “We feed off the energy in here and that was huge tonight.”

The star of the night, in more ways than one, was Terrell. On his way to 1,000 points, the junior scored 24 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to lead Madison.

“I’ve put in a lot of work over the years since I was a freshman and I’ve just been praying for this day,” said Terrell, who carries a double-double career average. “We came out ready to play tonight and played good defense.”

Monticello (5-4) could never find the touch from outside and managed only 23 points in the second half after taking a 29-27 lead into halftime. Madison held the backcourt duo of Mark Brady and Hines Banks to a combined 22 points on the night.

“We just shot ourselves out of the game tonight. We shot too many 3s. We didn’t take the ball to the basket and settled for too many outside shots,” said Monticello coach Kareem Martin.

In addition to Terrell’s 24-point, 10-rebound night, Falk recorded 11 points and 11 rebounds. Sam Utz and Carter also reached double figures with 14 and 13 points, respectively. Kevin Archer led the Mustangs with 13 points.