The Allen mens mettle was tested Wednesday night in their 85-83 win over Northwest Kansas Technical College at home.
It was a wild and crazy finish, but really Im just glad we got away with a win, head coach Andy Shaw said. In this league, whether it is a one-point win or a 20-point win, it doesnt matter. You just want the win.
The victory moved the Red Devils to 12-4 overall and 4-3 in Jayhawk Conference play.
The Red Devils got off to a hot 10-2 start but a 17-9 run by the Mavericks gave them a brief two-point lead with a little under 10 minutes left in the half.
The Red Devils regained control and by halftime were up 40-34.
ACC carried that mometum into the second half. Allen had an 11-point lead with 16:45 to play in the game and grew that to as much as 14.
About the same time, Northwest Techs sophomore wing Chris Freeman started to mount the teams comeback.
For the first half the Red Devils were able to shut out Freeman, who averages 17 points a game.
But the second half was a different story. By games end, Freeman had scored 18 points.
With 2:38 to play, Northwest had its first lead in quite some time.
Coach Shaw described the comeback: We had really good energy and all of the momentum was on our side, Shaw said. But then they erased it pretty quickly. They had some guys hit some threes to keep them in the game and then (Chris Freeman) went off after being shut out the entire first half.
Then the back forth began with the two teams trading leads and ties with the Red Devils never falling behind in the final minutes.
With just four seconds left on the clock, Allen sophomore Darius Love drove the lane and found freshman Malik Hardmon who was then fouled.
Hardmon hit both of his free throws to give the Red Devils the lead once again. A well-contested Northwest Tech three bounced away from the rim at the buzzer to give Allen the victory.
The biggest thing I was stressing near the end was I just wanted us to get a stop because it seemed like they scored every time they went down the court, Shaw said. Where we were fortunate was that they were always in a position where they had to tie us. They were chasing us, so when we were the last team to score, we won.
FREE THROWS were big for the Red Devils. Allen hit 24/29 for 82.8 percent after shooting in the 60s in their loss versus Hutchinson last Saturday. Northwest Tech was 20 for 28 for free throws.
