The Bulldogs busted out of the gate and drained their first four shots from the field to take 11-4 lead. FM’s Bill Taylor led the comeback with old fashioned 3 point play that made it 11-7 with 5:17 to play. Taylor scored 11 of his 13 points of the game in the first quarter while Heath Kaufman, Austin Pressley and Lane Lucas contributed to a 24 point quarter for the Jets. The Jets led 24 – 17 at the end of the first quarter.

The Bulldogs began the 2nd with an 8-2 run that narrowed the gap to one, 26-25. After the Jets burned up the net with 24 points in the first, the Jets only scored 5 points on a Gavin Glascoe trey and a Lucas deuce. The Jets maintained a 2 point lead at the break, 29-27.

The third quarter remained close and a bucket at the end of the quarter by Kaufman increased FM’s lead to 3 going into the final quarter.

The Bulldog’s Jeremiah Peacock notched up the intensity and scored two buckets in the first 36 seconds of the quarter that caused FM’s coach Dane French to call timeout to slow down Yellow Spring’s momentum. The Bulldogs came right back with the basketball and scored on a stick back to take a 6 point run and lead by three over FM, 45-42.

Kaufman narrowed the gap for FM to one point at two different occasions in the quarter until Yellow Springs’ Ryan Newsome bombed a trey at the 3:50 mark to give them a 4 point lead. Bill Taylor scored his only 2 points of the second half that narrowed the gap to 2 with 3:24 to play but this was the closest that FM came for the rest of the game.

To the Bulldogs credit they did a great job from the free throw line in the fourth quarter hitting 10 for 12. The Bulldogs increased the margin to 7 points until Lucas drained a 3 with 1:13 to play. The Jets had opportunities to change the outcome of the game with only a 4 point deficit but nothing fell in the dwindling seconds of the fourth quarter. The Jets shot 4-15 from the field and out of that total they only hit 1 shot out 9 attempts from beyond the arc. Yellow Spring won 60-51 and advanced to play Tri-Village in the sectional finals.

Scoring by quarters
Yellow Springs…..17…27…39…60
Franklin Monroe…24…29…42…51

Yellow Springs
Newsome – 11
Sikes-Gilbert – 13
Allen – 6
Brown – 14
Peacock – 12
Fugate – 2
Wimberly – 2

FM
Taylor – 13
Kaufman – 20
Nealeigh – 3
Pressley – 4
Lucas – 8
Glascoe – 3