Up 59-56, the Knights needed to make sure to protect the 3-point arc and the best way to do that was prevent a clean look from Wolverines’ sharpshooter Tony Richards, who had already made four shots from downtown.

“We were able to hold the ball and we attacked at the right times,” Eisenhower head coach Ryan Mangini said about the Knights’ play at the end of the game. “We didn’t turn the ball over too much, for the most part we made the right decisions. Then at the end we kind of packed it in and made them shoot outside those last couple of possessions there.”

The play drawn up by the Wolverines in the timeout intended for Richards to take the shot, but Eisenhower was all over it, not letting anyone get a clean look. Ultimately Lucas McNeal took the deep shot, but it missed the mark as the Knights held on for the 59-56 victory at Eisenhower Middle-High School on Wednesday night.

“We were looking to get the shot from outside to tie the game,” said Sheffield head coach Jordan Copley. “Ideally, I wanted to see it go to Tony in the corner, but Lucas had a wide-open shot, it just didn’t happen to fall tonight.”

Sheffield’s Caden Copley, left, is defended by Eisenhower’s Thakari Warren during Wednesday’s nonleague boys basketball game in Russell. Times Observer Photo by Christian Storms

Sheffield’s last lead in the contest was in the first quarter before Eisenhower controlled a majority of the middle periods, never surrendering its lead, but also never putting the game out of reach. At the end of the third quarter, Sheffield managed to tie the contest at 44-44 in the final minute when Richards spun away from three defenders in the paint to put in a shot off the glass.

Eisenhower steadied the ship at the beginning of the fourth quarter and got back to what was working. The Knights began playing fast and attacking the paint again, finding scores in transition to regain another two-possession lead at 50-44.

A sense of urgency kicked in for Sheffield as it began using a full-court press on defense. The adjustment slowed down the Knights, but the lead would be too much to come back from. Sheffield was able to narrow the lead to one point, but that’s as close as things would get as Eisenhower executed nearly perfect down the stretch going 7 of 8 from the free throw line.

“It was huge,” Mangini stated about the fourth-quarter free throws.

“Our team the first couple of games shot so poorly from the free throw line and then for them in a situation like this — Kael (Hunt) hit his two and (Thakari Warren) hit both of his — that won us the game right there for sure.”

Eisenhower was propelled most of the game by its duo of Wyatt Lookenhouse and Curt Darling. Both were tenacious forces on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball, leading to many opportunities created off turnovers in transition and many second chances through resiliency on the glass.

“They’re probably our two most aggressive scorers,” Mangini said about Lookenhouse and Darling. “Wyatt is a good shooter and he’s relentless at attacking and on offensive rebounds — he’s one of the best offensive rebounders I’ve coached. Curt really stepped up today, he’s a guy that can do it all, good passer, good shooter and tonight he got a lot of his buckets in transition.”

Lookenhouse finished with a team high of 19 points while Darling scored 15.

Sheffield was paced by Richards with a game high of 22 while Connor Finch added 15.

“Tony did a very good job tonight all around,” said Copley. “He got rebounds when we needed them, made the shots when we needed them, he played fantastic.”

SHEFFIELD (56)

Richards 8 2 22, Copley 3 2 8, Silvis 0 0 0, Finch 4 7 15, McNeal 5 1 11, Hardwick 0 0 0, Madigan 0 0 0, Burr 0 0 0, Richards 0 0 0. Totals 20 12 56.

EISENHOWER (59)

Darling 7 0 15, Black 4 3 11, Wonderling 0 0 0, Palmieri 0 0 0, Lundmark 0 0 0, Chase 0 0 0, Bunk 1 0 2, Seymour 0 0 0, Hunt 2 3 8, Lookenhouse 7 4 19, Stuart 0 0 0, Solokowski 0 0 0, Mandeville 0 0 0, Warren 1 2 4. Totals 22 12 59.

3-point goals–Richards 4, Darling, Hunt, Lookenhouse.

Sheffield 12 16 16 12 — 56

Eisenhower 13 19 12 15 — 59