Stafford's buzzer beater propels PCM boys to win over Fairfield

MONROE — Prairie City-Monroe senior Jason Stafford is confident in his ability on the basektball floor. And when the time was right, Stafford took advantage of a couple opportunities that were given to him in the fourth quarter of Tuesday night's non-conference home game against Fairfield.

Stafford scored 11 of his 15 points in the fourth quarter, and his 3-point basket with .4 seconds left sent Prairie City-Monroe's boys' basketball team to a 59-56 win over the Trojans.

"Things just heated up for me," Stafford said. "I am confident in my ability. I had the opportunity to take some shots late, I was open and as a senior I felt confident to be able to hit those shots in those situations."

His runner just outside the lane brought the Mustangs within one and then a 3-pointer with 1:21 to go gave PCM its first lead since the early stages of the third quarter. After a 3-pointer at the other end tied the game, Stafford had 7 seconds on the clock to work with and buried a shot from long range just before time expired.

Fairfield had one last chance to tie but its long pass to the other end of the court was stolen by senior Derek Brown.

"I was really proud of how they played after we got down in the third quarter," PCM coach Fred Lorensen said. "We didn't have a lot of time left to rally, but the guys sucked it up, made a few baskets, hit a couple free throws and Jason made a couple of big shots.

"I was happy with how they hung in there. It would have been easy to let it go south and lose by 20. To come back and win the thing was pretty cool."

The Mustangs trailed by as many as 10 in the fourth quarter after leading by as much as 12 in the first half.

Brown finished with 20 points, 10 rebounds, two assists and two steals to lead the Mustangs, while Stafford had 15 points, seven rebounds, three assists and two steals.

"We've played a lot of games where we just don't play well in the third quarter for some reason," Stafford said. "I think we have learned from it. It was good to see progression from other games. We were able to overcome the bad quarter and find a way to win."

PCM led 17-9 after one quarter and led 32-21 with 1:07 to go until halftime, but the Trojans went to the locker room down only six at halftime after a layup and contested 3-pointer by freshman Maxwell Weaton.

Fairfield scored the first 12 points of the second half to go up 38-32. PCM sophomore Durant Van Dyke hit back-to-back buckets inside to close the gap to two, but the Trojans led by six after three quarters.

Van Dyke tallied 14 points and four rebounds in the win.

PCM struggled with Fairfield's full-court pressure in the second half.

"We just needed to slow ourselves down because they were trying to get us in a rush," Brown said. "Once we slowed things down and played our game, we started getting some easy baskets. And we made some shots at the end of the game, which helped us get some momentum."

Lorensen said his team dribbled too much and made too many bad passes against the press.

"We hurt ourselves at the end of the first half," Lorensen said. "We were up double digits and let them back in it. They just attacked us in the second half. We were really bad against that. We dribbled too much and threw the ball away. it wasn't that we were missing shots. We just weren't getting shots."

The Mustangs also played the final 12 minutes without junior starter Gatlin Boell, who injured his ankle on the defensive end of the floor with 3:54 to play in the third quarter.

"That injury didn't help us," Lorensen said. "He's our best defender and It makes you one less good through the rest of the lineup. I don't think the injury is too serious but he will be out a while it looks like."

A pair of 3-pointers by Cameron Ledger and Landon Kooiker put the visitors up 53-43 with around 6 minutes to go in regulation.

That's when PCM's seniors took over.

Brown scored on a layup and putback and then made 1-of-2 from the line to close the gap to 53-48. Senior Cooper VandeLune converted a putback to make it 53-50 and then Stafford banked in his running jump before burying a 3-pointer with 1:21 to play.

The 12-0 run by the Mustangs (6-4) put the home team up by two. Junior Andrew Mitchell, who finished with five points, four assists and three rebounds, hit 1-of-2 from the line to go up three with 33.8 seconds left.

Fairfield freshman Tate Allen drilled a trey at the other end to tie the game with 7 seconds on the clock.

PCM elected not to take a timeout. That allowed Stafford and his teammates to face a chaotic defense, and Stafford pulled up for the game-winner with .4 seconds left to secure the win.

"We were hoping they would be a little chaotic on defense as time was winding down and that was kind of what happened. I just saw an opening and took it," Stafford said. "It felt like every other shot. It felt good off my hands and God helped that one go in. It was great. It was a fun win. Hopefully this one can give us some momentum and we can carry through the rest of the season."