Charles Givens Sr. is in his 40th season of coaching basketball at Perryville. Friday night, he witnessed something he had never seen before. The Panthers clawed back from an 18-0 deficit and would up pulling away from Rising Sun for a 50-39 triumph. "I've never had a game like this in my life where I was down by 18 points and we've come back to win," said Givens. "It was phenomenal." The game was tied at 35 before Perryville ended the game on a 15-4 run. Dominic Gugliotta scored with 5:23 left to start a 9-0 spurt and put the Panthers ahead for good. He followed it up with a three-pointer. "They just got me open," Gugliotta said of his teammates. "They wanted to spot me up in the corner and I made the shot. And I've got to thank my teammates for a great play and a great pass." The Tigers' Bryce Brown scored with 1:21 remaining to bring the hosts within seven before Perryville hit four free throws in the final minute. "The second half comeback was pretty crazy," said Gugliotta. "We talked in the locker room, we haven't had one like that in a while. Teammates fought hard. We played to our strengths and we played a good second half. That's all you can ask for." Roberts and Bobby Monk both had 12 points for Perryville. Gugliotta finished with nine. Casey Baker led Rising Sun with eight points and Noah Juergens and Will Farrington each added six. Rising Sun led 14-0 at the end of the first eight minutes and then scored the first two baskets of the second quarter. Pernell White, celebrating his birthday, put Perryville on the board by burying a three-pointer with 6:12 left in the half. The Tigers regained an 18-point lead before the Panthers ended the quarter with 11 consecutive points including trifectas by Nick Roberts and White. "The mindset was pretty low," Gugliotta said. "We were trying to stay positive on the bench and keep an up tempo pace to the game and play by our standards. And it worked." Trailing 28-21 midway through the third quarter, Perryville posted seven straight and tied the game for the first time on a three-pointer by Gugliotta with 1:13 to go in the period. "You get a lead in the first half you've got to keep going," said Passenant. "You got to keep being aggressive. You can't just sit on it in the first half. That's for me to worry about in the second half. You've just got to keep going. And I think they got the lead and we eased off. We needed to stay aggressive." The game was tied at 31 entering the fourth quarter which was dominated by the Panthers. Perryville had just seven players on the active roster. "Their instruction before the game was go out there and not make fouls because we've only got seven [players]," Givens said. "I don't know if that overrided their minds to not really go out there and play and wait until the second quarter, but we came back. It was great." After allowing 18 points in the first 10 minutes, Perryville gave up just 21 over the final 22 minutes. "We were on a roll," said Givens. "That's the only thing I can tell you. They got to the point where they thought they could win even though they were down. Like I said, the defense was key to us coming back." For Rising Sun, it was the second straight discouraging defeat. A week earlier, the Tigers led Elkton by 14 points in the third quarter but wound up losing by 17. Rising Sun coach Don Passenant says his team lacks a killer instinct. "We get the lead and then we seem to ease off," he said. "We don't seem to have it. We should have finished them off. A couple guys get in foul trouble. Guys come off the bench. And they started coming back and then we started throwing the ball away again. We worked on it [Thursday in practice] for about 40 minutes and we didn't execute. We didn't make shots. We missed free throws. I think they need to show us something." Passenant did not get what he was looking for on Friday night. "Nobody seemed to make the big shots," he said. "We have in the past. But it didn't happen [Friday night]. We had a lot of layups. We missed those. Perryville was very aggressive underneath. Not everybody was hitting the boards. Got to work harder. What can I say? I'm embarrassed. I hope [the players] are, too." Givens knew his team wouldn't quit but also realized coming all the way back from that big of a deficit was a lot to ask. "I never lose confidence, period," he said. "You know you get behind, you're going to fight back, but an 18-point lead was big, insurmountable I thought. We fought back. And we fought back because we played defense. That's my trademark. And the kids came back and played defense. I've been doing this for 40 years and I don't never, ever remember being down 18 to nothing, but it just goes to show you, anything's possible." Comments are closed.
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