Gallery • 20 Photos

Chloe Herzog

Homestead fell short of a comeback for the ages as Germantown pulled away in the waning seconds to win 65-58 and improve its record to 9-0, 6-0 in conference, as well as to send Homestead to 6-3 and 5-1 in conference play.

“Free throws. We finished 3-15 for the game. If we make the easy ones we win the game by a pretty good margin,” Jacob Urban, junior, said.  That seemed to be part of the story of the game as Homestead could not buy a bucket from the charity stripe or the three point line.

Captain Jaylen Key, senior, was a bright spot in the loss to Germantown as he dropped 25 points to lead all scorers for the game,  the next highest being Juwan McCloud of Germantown with 17. Key found success in both the first and fourth quarter as he scored nine and 12 respectively.  Jack Popp followed up Key’s performance with 15 points himself, scoring off a variety of jumpers and double clutch moves in the paint.

When the Highlanders needed to make a run, Key stepped up, scoring eight straight points. He started the self-made run with an emphatic fast break dunk that generated electricity for the team and the entire crowd. “Jaylen showed why he is our work horse down the stretch. He put the team on his back and did everything he could to try and get us a victory,” Mitchell Sutton, senior captain, said about Key’s performance.

The Highlanders started the fourth quarter down 15 and earned every point to flip the tables to a one point lead with under two-minutes remaining in the game.  However, after missing a free throw, Germantown went down the other way and sank a three, in the process a Germantown player was fouled during a box-out underneath the basket. Being in the bonus, Germantown went to the line on a 1-and-1, missing the back end of the two, Germantown regained possession and hit a corner jumper.

A six-point swing with less than a minute left proved to be the thorn in Homestead’s side as it was unable to surmount the new deficit.

“I was proud of the way our team battled back from 15 down at the start of the fourth. I thought that showed character to keep playing hard. We need to work on putting a full game together, with no let downs for 32 minutes. If we can do that, we’ll be in good shape the rest of the year,” captain Cameron Marotta, senior, said.

Homestead plays at Germantown on Thursday Feb. 20 at 7:30, in a game that could have even bigger implications on the season.

Leading Scorers: Jaylen Key, HHS, 25; Juwan McCloud, GHS, 17; Jack Popp, HHS, 15; Max Keefe, GHS, 13; Dwayne Lawhorn Jr., GHS, 12.