An all-too-familiar script played out once again for Grand Island Senior High.
Following a solid start, the Islanders struggled to find their shooting touch as Omaha Bryan rallied for a 52-42 road victory on Saturday night.
“It was kind of like ‘Groundhog Day’ in the last four minutes of the game,” Grand Island coach Jeremiah Slough said. “We made enough mistakes to make it really hard to win. (Allowing) offensive rebounds on free throws, offensive rebounds on missed shots, turnovers and missed free throws hurt.
“We had a lot of plays down the stretch where if we just execute some of the same things we’ve executed the entire game, we’ve got a really good chance to win.”
The Islanders (3-13) surged to a 10-1 lead on Broxton Barrientos’ steal and layup midway through the first quarter. Grand Island was 6 of 12 shooting from the floor in the game’s first eight minutes and led 16-8 after Reid Kelly’s inside basket and two free throws by Kazadi Mukoma.
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“We wanted to spread them out and drive against them a little bit,” Slough said. “We’re not a team that has shown a ton of that, so we just wanted to try and use their ball-pressure against them and get them to help or get all the way downhill.
“We did a good job in the first quarter of getting to the rim and also knocking down some jump shots.”
The Islanders led 16-13 after the first break and 24-21 at halftime before the Bears (9-6) took the lead for good at 27-26 on Mat Tut’s three-point play with 5:49 to play in the third.
“All week, we told our guys to have ‘road mentality’ and ‘road toughness,’ and not to even look at Grand Island’s record because they’ve had a lot of games that could’ve gone either way,” Omaha Bryan coach Galen Gullie said. “It was a grind-it-out win for us.”
Tut had 13 points, six rebounds and four blocked shots off the bench to lead Omaha Bryan. A’Mare Bynum added 11 points and nine rebounds and Amir Martin finished with 10 points, eight rebounds and four assists for the Bears, who outscored Grand Island 31-18 in the second half.
After trailing 40-31 with 4:48 to play, the Islanders cut their deficit to four points twice in the final 3:53. Riley Plummer’s 3-pointer made it 40-36 and later, Mukoma hit a 3 to cut Bryan’s lead to 46-42 with 1:40 remaining.
But the Bears closed with a 6-0 run that included putbacks by Tut and Rylan Rodriguez. A breakaway dunk by Elijah McCullough with 32 seconds left sealed the win.
“We’ve got some very talented guys — guys who always want to continue to get better by any means necessary,” Gullie said. “When our guys buy in with each other, buy in to the plan and our expectations, we can be really good. We can turn some heads.”
Gullie said the Bears’ play on the defensive end turned the tide. Omaha Bryan, which blocked six shots, limited Grand Island to a combined 5-of-21 shooting performance in the second and third quarters and turned the Islanders over eight times in the fourth.
“Sometimes we get into foul trouble by reaching too much and being too aggressive,” Gullie said. “We preach just to keep in front of the ball-handler and use our length. We can cause problems for a lot of teams that way.”
Slough said frequent scoring droughts have proved to be too much for the Islanders to overcome.
“They happened last night and they happened tonight,” said Slough, whose team lost 58-51 at Norfolk Friday night. “We had 24 points at half and with a minute to go in the third quarter, we’re sitting on 28.
“We’re getting some good shots, but we’re not making them. I thought our kids today did a better job of fighting for two-point opportunities and then taking good 3s as opposed to just settling for 3s.”
Mukoma finished with 10 points and five rebounds to lead the Islanders. Riley Plummer added seven points, while Barrientos finished with six points, six rebounds and three steals and Kelly had six points and six rebounds off the bench for the Islanders.
Grand Island’s last seven losses have come by an average of seven points. The Islanders have two four-point setbacks in that span.
“We keep finding different ways to goof it up in the fourth quarter,” Slough said. “We’ve had so many really, really good teams that we had on the ropes, but we just don’t make the good plays down the stretch because we’re trying to make a great play and trying to do too much sometimes.
“Once we figure that out, we’ve got a chance to be pretty good.”
Omaha Bryan 52, Grand Island 42
OMAHA BRYAN (9-6)
Elijah McCullough 3-5 2-4 8, A’mare Bynum 3-9 4-6 11, Rylan Rodriguez 1-2 1-2 3, Deon Darnell 1-9 2-2 5, Amir Martin 4-17 2-2 10, Woul Kueth 0-2 0-0 0, Mat Tut 5-11 3-6 13, Kaleb Rodriguez 1-2 0-0 2. Totals 18-57 14-22 52.
GRAND ISLAND (3-13)
Mukadi Mukoma 2-6 0-0 5, Riley Plummer 2-5 1-3 7, Kazadi Mukoma 2-6 5-6 10, Colton Marsh 3-7 1-5 7, Broxton Barrientos 3-6 0-1 6, Babur Choul 0-2 1-2 1, Reid Kelly 3-6 0-0 6, Bode Albers 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 15-39 8-17 42.
Omaha Bryan; 13; 8; 14; 17—52
Grand Island; 16; 8; 6; 12—42
3-point goals—OB 2-19 (Bynum 1-2, Darnell 1-2, Martin 0-11, Kueth 0-2, Tut 0-2), GI 4-16 (M.Mukoma 1-2, Plummer 2-5, K.Mukoma 1-4, Marsh 0-2, Barrientos 0-1, Choul 0-2). Fouled out—None. Rebounds—OB 42 (Bynum 9), GI 28 (Barrientos 6, Kelly 6). Assists—OB 8 (Martin 4), GI 7 (Marsh 3). Turnovers—OB 12, GI 19. Total fouls—OB 19, GI 17. Technicals—None. A—NA.