Spartans notch comeback victory at Catholic
By Ken Lay
Webb School of Knoxville’s boys basketball team took sole possession of first place in the Division II-AA East Region standings with a road win against Knoxville Catholic Thursday night.
The Spartans survived an upset bid from the Irish and notched a 61-54 victory before a packed and spirited house at Catholic High.
Webb (22-3 overall, 3-0 in the region) took control of the contest when Wilson Luton buried a 3-pointer, giving the Spartans a 55-45 lead with 2 minutes, 38 seconds remaining.
But early on, it didn’t look like the Spartans were going to beat anybody. Catholic came out blazing and opened a 9-0 lead when Carson Asbaty, who finished with 23 points, scored with 3:45 remaining in the opening frame, forcing Webb coach Ricky Norris to call a timeout.
“It was disappointing,” Norris said of his team’s slow start. “We’ve got an older team and we’ve played a really tough schedule against some high-quality teams, and to come out and look like we hadn’t been in that environment before was real disappointing.
“I was shocked a little bit, but more importantly, I was just disappointed. We can’t do that. We’re too experienced and there’s too much talent on this team to come out and start a game that way.”
Webb would eventually break out and overcome a start that saw it miss multiple early shots and commit several turnovers. The Spartans would make it 13-7 by first quarter’s end and they would do enough to take a 24-21 lead at halftime.
The Irish (15-5, 1-1) had seen their team battle the flu over the past few days and one of the players who was hit the hardest by the illness has been an offensive leader all season. Cade Murphy scored 15 points despite not feeling up to par. He scored nine of his points in the final frame to keep the Irish within striking distance.
“He did everything to prepare himself to help our team today,” Irish coach JaJuan Smith said of Murphy. “I’m just glad that he was able to play with us.”
Smith noted that Asbaty was the only Catholic player not to experience recent flu-like symptoms and he credited his team for its effort against the Spartans.
“They showed up to school today ready to play,” Smith said. “We tried to go with what we had and they fought.
“They fought hard today.”
The Irish’s effort also impressed Norris, Webb’s veteran head coach.
“You’ve got to give Catholic a lot of credit tonight,” Norris said. “They’ve had a lot of guys who have missed some time with practices and I thought they did some things that caused us not to play well.
“Coach Smith had them ready to go. They gave us fits tonight.”
Owen Lentz led the Spartans, who have reeled off nine consecutive wins, with 15 points. Cam Swearengen added 11.
After falling behind by 10 late, Catholic had one last gasp as it pulled to within 57-54, when Asbaty buried a long-range jumper with one minute left. The Spartans turned the ball over on their ensuing possession and Asbaty missed a potential game-tying 3-pointer a short time later before Webb scored the last four points of the contest.
