By Chuck Reherman
Sports Editor
Yukon went into the regular season finale with three goals in mind…
Get a Bedlam win, finish off their “revenge tour” and close the regular season on a strong note.
The Millers did all three.
Yukon held off a Mustang comeback bid with a 62-58 Central Oklahoma Athletic Conference overtime win on the Millers home court.
The Millers, 13-10, completed their revenge tour with the win. YHS beat Stillwater, Edmond Deer Creek and the Broncos, all three that had won the first meeting between the teams to finish three games over .500 and give YHS head coach Kevin Ritter his most wins in three seasons.
The Millers, who blew a 15-point lead in the first meeting with Mustang, saw the Broncos rally from five down in the foruth to force overtime. But, in the extra period, the Millers made the most of their shots and used free throws from Brayden Dutton and Carson Lambakis in the final 23 seconds to pull off the four-point win in a thriller.
Two of the last three games went to overtime and the Stillwater contest was a one-point difference.
“Shocking another overtime,” Ritter quipped after the game. “The good news is I am losing more water weight when we play these overtime games so that is a good thing. Hope I can keep it down.
“It is a good sign that we are finding ways to win,” he said. “Early in the season when things went wrong, it would kind of melt. But these last few games we found our way and these are the kind of games that will help us get ready for the playoffs, In the playoffs you are not going to win a 25-point game the first round of the playoffs. Hopefully the games will teach us what we need to do to find a way to win.”
YHS led by five in the fourth quarter but saw Mustang come back to close to one, then tied the game 52-52 on a Jacobe Johnson shot with four seconds left.
In overtime, YHS pushed their lead back out to four, 57-53, but again Mustang rallied to close to one, 59-58.
With 25 seconds left, Dutton hit a free throw to go up by two and after Mustang missed a tying shot, Lambakis was fouled and he hit two free throws to make it four.
Lambakis led the scoring with 19, Justus Reister had 12, Dayne McBroom eight, Dutton seven and Colby Baker six.
“We did some of the little things to finish the game, but not all,” Ritter said. “We will have to shore those up this week to get ready for that first game in the playoffs.”
