Playing for the final time this season on their home floor on Thursday, the University Heights Academy boys’ basketball team rallied from a six-point fourth-quarter deficit to knock off visiting Owensboro Catholic 72-69. The Blazers finished a perfect 9-0 at home and improved to 21-6 with their sixth win in seven outings to close the regular season.
UHA avenged a triple-overtime loss in last season’s All-A state tournament, but trailed by six at the halftime break on Thursday. Matthew Hauret drilled a pair of first-quarter three-pointers for the Blazers, and they led 14-9 before Ronald Smith scored seven points down the stretch to pull the Aces even at 16-16 after one.
Neither team could find much breathing room in the second, with Elijah Walton’s putback breaking a 26-26 tie and starting a 12-4 spurt for a 36-30 UHA lead at halftime. Gavin Grubbs posted five points and Walton scored the Blazers’ last seven on the way to 11 in the frame.
Neither team led by more than five points in the third quarter, with Catholic’s Luke Breickman’s layup and a three-pointer by Smith making it 48-43 with less than a minute to play in the frame. Walton and Quarles scored on back-to-back drives to close the quarter and pull the Blazers to within a point with eight minutes to go.
Breickman’s layup put the Aces up 60-54 with three minutes left before Grubbs capped a 6-0 run with a bucket on a drive to tie the game with 1:36 left. After Waryn Ebelhar scored on the baseline to push O-Cath in front, Grubbs scored six straight to put the Blazers in front for good at 67-64.
Kaiser Frick cut UHA’s lead to a basket with 27 seconds to play, before Quarles stole an inbounds pass and hit one of two free throws to make it a two-possession game. An O-Cath three-pointer trimmed the margin to a point, but Quarles knocked down a pair of free throws with less than a second on the clock to seal the victory.
Grubbs finished with a game-high 24, including 12 points with the game on the line in the fourth quarter. Quarles scored 18 for the Blazers, and Walton finished with 17.
Breickman scored 19 to lead the Aces, followed by Ebelhar with 18, and Smith with 12. Owensboro saw a two-game winning run come to an end to slip to 19-9.
Owensboro Catholic 16 14 18 21 — 69
University Heights 16 20 11 25 — 72
Owensboro Catholic (19-9) — Breickman 19, Ebelhar 18, Smith 12, Frick 7, V. Carrico 4, Eaves 4, Carothers 3, W. Carrico 2
University Heights (21-6) — Grubbs 24, Quarles 18, Walton 17, Hauret 9, Baker 4
