West Prairie junior Braden Coplan finished with a career high 49 points, but Camp Point Central’s Luke Ippensen scored on a put back of a missed shot with two seconds remaining in the third overtime to give the host Panthers a thrilling 87-86 non-conference victory Thursday night.
It was the regular season finale for the Cyclones who finished with a school-record 24-6 mark as they prepare to enter regional play this week.
West Prairie head coach Ian Conkling wasn’t pleased with a lot of the overall effort but confident his team will recover and perform better in regional action.
“This was reminiscent of when we played Payson (Seymour),” said Conkling referring to a close 76-75 win at Payson on Jan. 29. “Our lack of on-the-ball defense and attention to detail and not keeping the guy in front of them was pretty telling throughout the game. We kind of struggled with that.”
It was Senior Night at CPC and even though the roster has only two seniors, the Panthers came out aggressive only to see WPHS, especially Coplan and junior Matt Whitman, go toe-to-toe early on.
Central was leading 6-3 when Coplan hit his first trey of the night to tie the game at 6-6 with just under four minute left in the period.
The Panthers would go on a 6-0 run to regain the lead at 12-6, but Coplan drilled another threepointer with 1:29 left followed by a Whitman jumper with under a minute to go to deadlock the score at 12-all.
Braxton Kestner would put CPC on top with a basket just before the buzzer to give the Panthers a 14-12 advantage after one quarter.
Coplan started off the second quarter with a threepointer and a short jumper to give WPHS a 19-17 lead. A Holden Coplan threepoint play with 2:51 left in the half gave the Cyclones a 25-23 lead, but CPC would finish with a 9-5 spurt to take a slim 32-30 lead at halftime.
The Panthers would extend their lead to as many as nine points in the third quarter as the Cyclones’ offense was held to only two field goals, both by Coplan, in the period before West Prairie managed to trim the lead to 44-39 after three quarters.
The Panthers had their offensive struggles in the fourth quarter and the Cyclones, and Coplan, capitalized.
Trailing by nine with just over five minutes to go, West Prairie went on a 6-1 run after baskets by Whitman, Holden Coplan, and Eli DeCounter to get within 51-47.
A three-pointer by Braden Coplan made it 53-50 a short time later, but CPC sophomore Luke Huston answered with a trey to make it 56-50.
Coplan would score the next nine points for WPHS, all three-pointers, to help bring the Cyclones to within 60-59 with only seven seconds left.
Kolin Bockhold hit oneof- two free throws with six seconds to go to make it 61-59. WPHS moved the ball down court and had it swatted out of bounds along the Cyclones’ baseline with only one second on the clock.
On the inbounds play, Holden Coplan found an open Ryan Clark underneath for a quick basket at the buzzer to send the game into overtime.
The Cyclones never led in the first overtime period and trailed by as many as four after an Ippensen basket made it 67-63 with only 1:52 left.
A Holden Coplan trey brought WPHS to within 67-66 before Corbyn Hoosier scored to make it 69-66 with 31 seconds remaining.
Whitman sank one-oftwo free throws before a basket by Braden Coplan with two seconds to go sent the game into a second overtime.
The Cyclones began the second overtime session with a 6-0 run to take their largest lead of the game at 75-69 with under two minutes remaining.
But the Panthers would battle back as WPHS would manage only one field goal in the second overtime and converted only 11-of-16 free throws to allow CPC to get back in it.
A trey by Huston made it 77-74 with 41 seconds left and the sophomore guard would hit another threepointer with just six seconds remaining on the clock to tie the score at 82-82 and force a third overtime.
Both teams traded leads early on and Braden Coplan’s ninth trey of the night gave WPHS its last lead of the contest at 86-85 with just over 30 seconds to go.
Following a CPC timeout, Huston missed a jumper, but Ippensen grabbed the rebound and scored with two seconds left for an 87-86 advantage.
The Cyclones would not get another shot off as CPC improved to 6-19 for the season.
Holden Coplan also finished in double-digits for WPHS with 14 points while Whitman finished with eight points. DeCounter and Clark added six and three points respectively.
Luke Ippensen led a trio of CPC players in double figures with 26 points.
West Prairie was scheduled to open regional play by hosting Augusta Southeastern (2-15) Monday night in Colchester in the first-round of the Class 1A Tremont Regional.
The Cyclones are the No. 3 sub-sectional seed, while the Suns are seeded 14th.
The winner advances to the semifinal round Wednesday night to take on the winner of the Camp Point Central (6-19) vs. Illini Central (11-17) contest in Tremont.
The Panthers are the No. 11 seed, while Illini Central is the No. 6 seed.
Other opening round matchup Monday include No. 15 seed South Fulton (5-23) at No. 2 seed Tremont (20-10) and No. 10 seed Delavan (13-17) vs. No. 7 seed Midwest Central (1514) at Manito.
“Going forward, I feel like our most concern is probably on the defensive end because we’re clicking pretty good offensively,” said Conkling. “We need to do the little things a lot better than what we’ve been doing, at least for the last two weeks. It’s more of a concerted effort with effort plays and rebounding the basketball and just doing the little things right.”
The West Prairie JV squad saw its fine season come to a close with a 45-43 loss to CPC. The Cyclone JV finished the season with a final record of 22-3.
Gannon Shipman led the Cyclones with a game-high 14 points while Holden Coplan and Ivan Beck finished with eight points apiece.
Cam Melvin also had six points and Mason Whitman finished with three, while Tyson Carnes and Ayden Lacey added two points each to round out the scoring.
