EULESS– For a moment, the gym went silent.
6.2 seconds on the clock. The ball swung to senior guard Colin Griffith on the three-point arc.
No hesitation. Rise. Release. Net.
And just like that, the Coppell boys basketball team had history.
Griffith’s 3-pointer in the final seconds finished a fourth-quarter rally as Coppell defeated Arlington Martin, 63-60, on Friday at Trinity High School in the Class 6A Region I area playoffs. The Cowboys make their first appearance in the regional semifinals since 2003 when they play North Crowley at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Mansfield Timberview.
“It was a big shot,” Coppell coach Ryan Murphy said. “Great decision to get him the ball. We told Colin he could pop or roll and just read it. He read it great. Big shot by Colin and I’m really proud of these guys.”
Coppell trailed 33-30 at halftime and fell behind by as many as eight points in the third quarter, but the Cowboys kept the deficit within reach. Junior point guard Robert Watson repeatedly attacked the lane in the third and fourth quarters, slicing through gaps and finishing at the rim to keep the Cowboys within striking distance.
Sophomore guard Jacob Anene added a third quarter drive to make it 42-38 with 3:13 remaining in the third, and just before the fourth began, Griffith threw down a dunk at the buzzer to cut the deficit to 46-44.
That dunk shifted the energy.
Murphy turned to his defensive unit, increasing ball pressure and forcing Martin into tougher possessions.
“We’ve done that a bunch of times this year,” Murphy said. “We’ve been down. We go with our defensive group, and we try to pressure the ball and make it chaotic.”
Senior guard Malachi Jackson cleaned up a rebound to bring Coppell within four. With just over two minutes left, he drove coast to coast to tie the game at 60-60, sending the crowd into a frenzy.
Thirty seconds later, the Cowboys needed one more play.
With Martin’s defense collapsing on the initial action, the ball found Griffith beyond the arc. The shot dropped clean. The buzzer sounded. Coppell players rushed the court.
Sophomore guard Crawford O’Connor watched the final seconds unfold.
“I was just going crazy,” O’Connor said. “We haven’t been to the third round since 2003. It feels crazy to be the first group to do that. We practice harder than we play so that when it comes to the game, it feels easy.”
The Cowboys now prepare for North Crowley on Tuesday.
“We know they’re a great team,” O’Connor said. “But we can hang with anybody. We can beat anybody.”
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