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Parkway's Trevor Stearns puts up a shot over Van Wert's Cohen Bragg (20) and Colin Haggerty.
ROCKFORD - For 26 minutes, Parkway slowly expanded its lead. In the final 2 1/2 minutes, Van Wert came roaring almost all the way back.
Two free throws by Trevor Stearns stretched the lead to three with 23 seconds left and the Cougars' last two 3-point shots clanged off the rim as the Panthers escaped with a 43-40 win in boys basketball action at Panther Gymnasium on Friday.
"It was a good early-season win," Parkway coach Doug Hughes said. "Obviously some things late that we need to correct, but like I was just telling the guys, you find a way to win that one. Trevor made some clutch free throws there down the stretch."
Parkway (2-1) slow-played its offense for stretches in the late third and early fourth quarter, but Xavier Samples stretched the lead to nine with a 3-pointer off a flip from Wyatt Carpenter with 6:31 to go, and the defense held Van Wert (0-3) to a free throw until Stearns drove to the rim for a layup with 2:28 remaining, making it 41-31 Panthers.
Kaden Shaffer jump-started the Cougars with a three on the other end, and after a miss on the other end, Caiden Berry was called for a foul, the Panthers' fifth in the fourth quarter. Shaffer hit one free throw to make it a six-point game.
Fletcher Smith missed from close-range, Wyatt Carpenter grabbed the rebound but missed the put-back, and after a Van Wert timeout, Keaten Welch got behind a screen on the right side and drained another three to make it 41-38.
The Cougars committed two deliberate fouls, but then Shaffer intercepted a pass by Berry and found Rylan Miller cutting along the baseline for a layup that cut the lead to one with 46.1 seconds left.
"I didn't think we took very good care of the basketball, that's first and foremost," coach Hughes said. "We had a really nice three in the corner there by Caiden Berry - I wouldn't trade that, that's a good shot. I want him taking that every time. We had an offensive rebound by Wyatt Carpenter, who had a tremendous game for us, just tremendous, he's been playing really well all preseason and opening weekend… but he had a tip-in off an offensive rebound, would've liked to see him bring that down."
Parkway's Wyatt Carpenter drives between Van Wert's Keaten Welch and Colin Haggerty at Panther Gymnasium on Friday. Carpenter led the Panthers with 13 points.
The Panthers dribbled 20 seconds off the clock before Welch fouled Stearns, who was 2-for-4 from the line. But Stearns stepped up and knocked down both shots to make it 43-40.
Parkway's man defense kept up switching off the Cougars, and coach Ben Laudick elected to call timeout with 11.8 seconds left to reset his offense.
"I said we're going to switch everything, and we need to make sure we get the first rebound - which we didn't do," coach Hughes said. "We've basically got to come together and forget about everything that's happened to that point, make sure that we're all together on the same page, we're communicating, and doing a good job out there to switch the screens and communicate what's happening."
As the clock ran down, Shaffer got an inch of daylight on the left side and fired a three that hit the rim and caromed back to Van Wert's Colin Haggerty, who stepped outside the arc and put up an off-balance shot, which hit the front of the iron as the buzzer sounded.
Parkway deployed 10 players in two shifts, and it was shortly after the first "line change" that it took the lead for good. Wyatt Carpenter hit a triple from the right elbow on a pass from Xavier Samples to make it 9-6 with 3:39 left in the first quarter.
Parkway's Douglas Hughes (right) draws a charge on Van Wert's Gage Stemen in the second quarter as Ethan Pond tries for a block.
Carpenter added another bucket off a steal by Ethan Pond and Douglas Hughes hit a shot in the lane to extend the lead, but with the Panthers holding the ball with less than 30 seconds left in the first quarter, Samples put up a three that missed, giving Welch a chance to make it a two-point game with a reverse layup under the basket with 1.4 seconds left.
"Bryce (Stearns) graduated, everyone else was back, so when we sat out March, April, May, we watched a lot of our films to see what we needed to correct," coach Hughes said. "Well, late-quarter situations were awful. Just flat-out awful, and that's coaching. We got to get better at that, and we were better opening weekend."
Both defenses asserted themselves in the second quarter, which finished 4-2 in favor of Parkway. Devon Crouch and Wyatt Carpenter hit shots for the Panthers, with Carpenter crashing the glass to put back a miss by Pond, and Shaffer drove for a layup with 2:28 left, but that was all.
The first unit started to find momentum early in the third, and the second line continued the run. Carpenter made it a 10-point game off a Stearns steal with 4:24 left in the quarter, and though Shaffer hit a trey off a turnover, the Panthers went into the fourth with a 34-28 lead.
All told, 10 players saw the floor for Parkway, all of whom played significant minutes. Carpenter (13) and Stearns (10) scored double-digit points.
"It's been an awful lot of fun from a coaching standpoint," coach Hughes said. "Coaching for 32 years, never had confidence in 10 guys. I've got a lot of confidence in 10 guys.
"We go four minutes, four minutes, and then we can play off that," he added. "We don't like the way one group's playing, the guys know, we're subbing. You've got to go out and give maximum effort and maximum intensity every minute you're on the floor. And then they know, we told them, 'If you're making a run, we're not taking you out.'"
Parkway's biggest liability was fouling, as the Panthers committed 25 fouls and found themselves over the limit in three quarters. In the third, Crouch committed the fifth foul of the quarter - and his fourth - on a charge, but because possession changed, the Cougars didn't go to the line, and Parkway wasn't whistled again until the fourth.
Van Wert also helped bail the Panthers out with 11-of-20 shooting from the foul line.
Parkway has another challenge tonight with a trip to Crestview, which beat Van Wert 55-42 on Dec. 1. Van Wert hosts Wayne Trace, which beat Parkway by nine points last Saturday.
