Brayden Jones hit a 3-point basket for the Bulldogs 35 seconds into the first quarter and Crestview took a lead it would never relinquish on the way to a 75-61 win.

Crestview coach Greg Watson had no complaints about how his team handled the distractions of the special night.

“I felt like we played hard,” he said. “On Senior Night there’s a bunch of emotions and feelings in the air. That’s always kind of scary and I think we handled that pretty well.

“We got off to a decent start. Once we got rolling, we played really well. I feel like offensively we’ve improved and that’s kind of what I expected to see all year.”

Jones, a senior, scored the first Bulldog basket of the night, but it was senior post player Josiah Klauser who stole the show with a game-best 22 points.

The Raiders were at a loss to stop Klauser inside the paint as he scored time after time on a reverse layup using the basket to screen a taller Navarre defender.

Klauser scored eight points in the first quarter as Crestview led 13-11 at the end of the first quarter. The other Bulldog senior with the last name of Jones, Makhi, scored the other basket.

Darius Cunningham did his best to keep the Raiders close, scoring six of his team-high 19 points in the first quarter.

Klauser kept the heat on the Raiders adding six points in the second quarter to go along with four points from Makhi Jones, four points from Devin Davis, a 3-pointer by Lorenzo Blackwell and a basket by Michael Foley inside the point.

Crestview led 32-19 at the half and maintained the double-digit advantage for much of the first four minutes plus of the third period.

The complexion of the game seemed to be at a turning point when Navarre’s Jonah Forrest delivered a 4-point play to cut the Bulldog lead for 12 points to eight points.

That’s when the Bulldogs showed their tenacity. Rather than wilting under the pressure of Navarre narrowing the gap, they responded in a big way.

Blackwell hit a 3-pointer to push Crestview’s lead back to 11 points with 3:27 left in the quarter. Foley scored on a traditional 3-point play with a made basket and free throw after being fouled. Just like that the Bulldogs were back in front by 14 points.

“Those two possessions might not have won the game, but then again they might have,” Watson said of the needed scores. “We’ve had games where they score and get a 4-point play or whatever and then we don’t score or don’t get a good shot or turn it over or something.

“That’s the difference between winning by 15 or losing by three. That’s nothing that’s going to be remembered because winning happened, but those were two huge possessions.”

The Raiders refused to go away quietly into the rainy January night. Navarre continued to battle and cut the Crestview lead to seven points with 4:27 left in the fourth quarter.

A Davis 3-pointer pushed the lead back to 10. A pair of free throws by Navarre’s Trey Brauns got the Raiders back within eight. A Makhi Jones 3-point shot increased the lead back to 11.

Crestview outscored Navarre 17-10 in the final four minutes of the game to seal the win.

Klauser was joined in double figures for the Bulldogs by Davis with 12 points.

Makhi Jones and Blackwell each had nine points. Foley scored six points and Brayden Jones five points.

A.J. Johnson, a senior, scored four points for the Bulldogs. Jacob Moulton, another senior, scored three points. Braylon Phillips scored three points and senior Lazarius Parks scored two points.

McGraw hit that shot as the buzzer from 3-point range just to the upper left of the lane as Baker pulled out an exciting 51-50 win.

“I’m just proud of their grit and them playing hard,” Baker coach Chelsea Medley said after the win. “They have done a better job of not letting mistakes get to them. It’s not about the missed shot or mistake, but how long it takes you to get over it.

“You have to have that short memory and tonight they just kept grinding and kept pushing no matter the circumstances.”

It looked as if the game might turn into a blowout by the Lady Gators in the first half.

Baker jumped to an early 13-6 lead at the end of the first quarter. Bailey Johnson scored five points, McKenzie four points, Lily Adams three points and Katrina Price a point.

Aiyana Dixon, who did most of the heavy lifting for the Lady Hoboes with a game-best 31 points, scored four points in the first quarter. Laramie Boykin added two points.       

McGraw scored six points and Price four points in the second quarter as Baker led 23-15 at the half.

Lakyn Varnum scored a basket as did Boykin and Dixon added five points for Laurel Hill in the second quarter.

Dixon, Laurel Hill’s sophomore post player, took over in the third quarter scoring 15 of her team’s 21 points as the game was tied 36-36 heading into the final period of regulation. Boykin and Jalion Smiley had 3-point baskets for Laurel Hill in the third quarter to go along with Dixon’s big effort.

Price scored six points for the Lady Gators in the third quarter with McGraw scoring five and Johnson two.

Dixon scored early in the fourth quarter to put Laurel Hill back on top. Karsyn Crinklaw scored for the Lady Gators to tie the game at 38-38.

Savannah Riley hit a three for Laurel Hill that was followed by a 2-point basket by Adams for Baker. Riley scored on a 2-point basket and then McGraw hit a 2-pointer followed by a 3-pointer as the Lady Gators retook the lead at 45-43.

Three points by Dixon in a span of seven seconds gave the Lady Hoboes a 50-47 lead with 26 seconds showing on the clock.

Price hit a free throw for Baker with 22.8 seconds left to pull the Lady Gators to within two points of LHS. A short time later McGraw hit her buzzer beater as her teammates rushed the court celebrating the win.           

At the end of the night Lady Hobo coach Carl Henry Jr. said it came to down to defensive execution on the final play.

“It was a simple missed assignment,” he said of McGraw getting open for the game winner. “We covered it in the timeout, but it was poorly executed.”

Jackson led the Baker attack with 20 points and Prows added 17 to pace the Gator attack.

If not for Baker coach Brent Zessin’s already shinny dome, Thursday’s game is the kind that might have made his hair fall out.

“I pulled my hair out a long time ago,” the veteran coach joked.

What was no joking matter is the way the Gators fought through adversity and found a way to win.

“I’m really pleased with the leadership from our seniors,” Zessin said. “Their senior leadership really paid off. We made some bad decisions on passing and turning the ball over. And we missed some shots early.

“We just kept digging, digging and digging and it paid off.”

PCA led 10-7 at the end of the first quarter. Levi Hunter and Stephen McCosker each had baskets and Prows scored three points on an old fashioned 3-point play of a made basket and free throw.

Prows hit a 3-pointer early in the second quarter to tie the game at 10-10.

The Warriors took a 13-10 lead early in the second quarter when Adrian Acost hit a 3-pointer, his only basket of the game.

PCA stretched the lead to 22-13 late in the half before Jackson scored five points to cut the Warrior advantage to 22-18. James Washington’s only basket of the game for PCA came at the buzzer ending the half and gave the Warriors a 24-18 lead.

At times it seemed as if the Newton’s third law of motion, “For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction,” was ruling the game.

The action of a Warrior run resulted in the equal and opposite reaction of a run by the Gators.

A pair of 3-pointers by Jackson and basket by McCosker early in the third quarter gave Baker a 26-25 lead. The lead lasted all of 30 seconds before PCA regained the lead.

The Warriors eventually pushed their advantage back to nine points at 45-36 and again at 48-39 with 6:27 left in the fourth quarter.

This time the Gators responded with a stronger reaction down the stretch. Baker outscored the Warriors 17-6 in the final six minutes of the game.

Jackson, Hunter, McCosker and Prows scored.

A 3-point basket by Noah Cobb with 3:05 left in the game put Baker in front 51-50 as the teams traded baskets down the stretch.

Prows had seven points in the fourth quarter and Jackson had six points.

Not to be overlooked in the scorebook are the four points scored by Colton Stidham who was playing in his first game since suffering a wrist injury several weeks ago.

“We did a lot of good things, but you know, I’m always looking at the bad things,” Watson admitted. “It was just an ugly game. The pace was just slower than we want.

“We couldn’t make a shot. We had silly turnovers that made the game just sloppy. Cut out those mistakes and it’s more than 14-point game without the turnovers.”

Even in a sloppy game, with silly turnovers, the Bulldogs took control early and overcame the mistakes.

Makhi Jones put the Bulldogs in front scoring the game’s first goal with less than 15 seconds off the clock. A bucket by A.J. Johnson with 6:38 left in the first quarter made it 4-0 in favor of Crestview.

Back-to-back baskets by Joeseph Skipworth and Tylon Lee pulled Pace even at 4-4 with 4:24 left in the first quarter.

Jones scored with 4:14 left in the quarter to put Crestview in front for good. Jones scored the last basket of the first quarter as the Bulldogs led 8-4 as the period came to an end.

Crestview outscored Pace 15-10 in the second quarter with Johnson leading the way with six of his eight points on the night.

Jones, the leading scorer in the game with 26 points, scored four in the second quarter. Devin Davis hit was Crestview’s only 3-point basket of the night in the second period and Josiah Klauser picked up his first score of the night as the Bulldogs led 23-14 at the half.

Crestview added four more points to the lead in the third quarter outscoring the Patriots 14-10. Brayden Hall provided a spark on both ends of the floor for the Bulldogs pressuring the Patriots on defense and scoring twice.

Pace was able to play Crestview even in the final quarter as the Bulldogs (4-2) were only able to add a point to the lead as they won their third-consecutive game.

Jones was the only Bulldog in double figures. Klauser joined Johnson with eight points to tie as the second-leading scorers for Crestview.

A three-game winning streak is nice, but Watson knows the Bulldogs must stop making the silly mistakes if they want to make a run at the district title and beyond.

“We had a bunch of rebounds that just fell and hit us in the hands and dropped out of bounds,” he said. “There was some weird stuff going on.

“We’ll take it (the win), any of them at this time of year you’ll take. But we’ve got to get better to get to where we want to.”

Crestview went on a 10-run in the final 82 seconds of play to steal the win 58-55.

The Bulldogs sealed the game in the final five seconds when the Eagles, trailing by a point, missed a pair of free throws and Josiah Klauser sealed the deal for Crestview with a pair of free throws with 1.7 seconds showing on clock.

“That’s a lot of pressure on a high school kid,” Bulldog coach Greg Watson said referring to the missed Eagle free throws. “But I love it for us. This is a great game for us because we didn’t play well.

“We were able to finally make a few plays because it looked like the game was over for us with about two minutes to go. Everything that could go wrong had. But we had a couple of kids make some plays.”

Klauser was one of the kids making plays, scoring four of his 11 points in the final 62 seconds of the game.

Makhi Jones, as always seems to be the case for the Bulldogs, was another Crestview player making plays as were Lorenzo Blackwell and A.J. Johnson.

Jones was the game’s leading scorer with 21 points. Johnson joined Jones and Klauser in double figures with 10 points.

Crestview jumped to a quick lead in the first quarter and led 18-10 seven minutes into the first quarter. Jones scored seven points in the quarter, Johnson four points, Blackwell three points on a 3-pointer and Brayden Hall had four points.

Hall’s four points in the first quarter were his only points of the game. Without those four points by Hall in the first six minutes of the game, Crestview very well could have lost the game.

The Bulldogs (3-2) led 18-13 at the end of the first quarter and 28-25 at the end of the half.

The Eagles dictated the pace of the game in the latter stages of the first half and throughout most of the third and fourth quarters. Niceville’s slow down style of play took the Bulldogs out of their pressure defense and pressing the ball down the floor on offense.

As the Eagles played their style of ball they were able to move in front for the first time with 10 seconds left in the third quarter when Jackson Hamman hit a 3-pointer. Niceville outscored Crestview 17-13 in the third quarter, but the problems were just getting started for the Bulldogs.

The Eagles seemed to have taken control of the game with four minutes left as they led 51-43.

That’s when the Bulldogs showed that quality of a championship team and the mental toughness to find a way to win.

Crestview went on a 15-4 run in those final four minutes to take the win.