Kennard comes through in clutch, Franklin tops fellow Ohio power St. Edward in quarterfinals

He didn’t put up as many as he did in his opening game, but Franklin (Ohio) senior Luke Kennard sure got it done for the Wildcats in the quarterfinals of the Beach Ball Classic.

Even still, the game went down to the wire.

The Duke signee, who went off for a Beach Ball Classic single-game record 52 points in a blowout win over Mullins on Friday, poured in a game-high 39 points on Monday as Franklin got past St. Edward (Ohio) 76-73 in a battle of two of the top programs in the state of Ohio.

“They’re the defending state champs and that’s one of the most elite programs in the state of Ohio and that’s just a huge win for our program,” said Wildcats coach Brian Bales, whose team will face Hough (N.C.) in the semifinals at 7 p.m. Tuesday. “It’s a huge win for us and a program-changer.”

Franklin led by nine at halftime behind Kennard’s 21 first-half points, but the Eagles started to make a push in the second half. With around two minutes left, St. Edward cut its deficit to 67-66.

“This game was full of runs but we kept pushing and pushing as a team; that’s what so special about this group I’m a part of. We had a couple of good runs there – up nine at the half,” Kennard said. “We kind of held it through the first few minutes of the second half. They executed well on offense, that’s a terrific team. They know what they’re doing, they’re well-coached, and [they have] some good players; I know some of the guys over there. It was a fun matchup but at the end we just fought through. We were really tired, I could tell. We just kept pushing; it was a great win for us.”

Austin Doliboa put the Wildcats up 74-70 after hitting two foul shots with 38 seconds left.

Then, Kipper Nichols hit a 3-pointer to bring the Eagles within one but Kennard then hit two free throws to put Franklin back up by 3 points. Derek Funberburk attempted a 3-pointer, but the shot missed and Kennard grabbed the rebound before the buzzer sounded as the Wildcats moved on.

“I got to the foul line pretty good tonight; I think that helped a little bit there at the end. I knocked a few free throws down,” Kennard said. “A lot of people hit clutch free throws for us, which was great. Clutch guys made clutch baskets at clutch times. It was a good team offensively, we did great. My shot was pretty good tonight, I missed a few here and there but we came out with the win; that’s all that matters.”

Evan Crowe came up big for Franklin, scoring 18 points and hit a few clutch shots to keep Franklin ahead.

“Evan is big for us,” Bales said. “He doesn’t get the credit he deserves. He’s a guy that’s going to play at the next level and he was huge for us tonight. He was huge.”

Meanwhile, Kennard is well on his way to breaking a few more tournament records. He is up to 91 points total in two games played during the Beach Ball Classic and needs 28 points on Tuesday to break Shadow Mountain (Ariz.) coach Mike Bibby’s three-game tournament record (118).

Kennard is also just 29 points away from the Beach Ball Classic four-game record of 119.

But Kennard said the records are secondary to winning.

“I’m not really worried about that, honestly,” Kennard said. “The record book doesn’t really matter to me as long as we get wins that’s all that matters. We want it bad. We have a tough match and we’ll prepare like crazy. We’ll be ready and we’ll see how it goes.”

Franklin was pumped up following the win over St. Edward, and Bales said he was excited that his team executed so well to move on in the tournament.

“They’ve got so many weapons and that press they’ve got is lethal,” Bales said of St. Edward. “They came back and we bent but we didn’t break. I just kept telling my guys, ‘Keep hanging in there, keep hanging in there, keep hanging in there’ Our guys did, we made some plays at the end but they made some big shots.”

Bales knows how much his team wants to add a Beach Ball Classic trophy but also is aware his team will see some fierce competition on the way.

“They want it bad but we pride our program on just winning the next one,” he said. “We have to get ready for a really good Hough team and they’re going to be a handful. They’ve got the two bigs inside so we’ll go to work and figure out what we’ve got to do against them.”

This story was originally published December 29, 2014 at 9:49 PM with the headline "Kennard comes through in clutch, Franklin tops fellow Ohio power St. Edward in quarterfinals."