By Jim Muir

If you hang around high school sports long enough you get lulled into the notion that you’ve seen it all, that nothing can happen that you haven’t seen before.

Every time I get that smug belief that there’s nothing going to surprise me I get slapped up side of the head by the reality that when dealing with high school athletes a wise man will learn to expect the unexpected.

Case in point: Benton vs. Herrin in high school basketball last Friday night.

Let me lay just a little groundwork on this one before I explain what has to rank as one of the oddest, craziest, wildest games I’ve seen.

Both teams lost heavily to graduation last year and both teams have only one player that saw extended varsity action last year – Cole Forby for Benton and Justin Lukens for Herrin. Both teams entered the game with identical 1-3 records and it was the first SIRR Ohio Division game for both teams.

I broadcast Benton Rangers sports on WQRL and as a rule try to talk to Coach Ron Winemiller the day before or the day of the game just to get a feel for how the week has gone, find out about injuries, the opposition, starting lineups, etc. I sent Winemiller a text message very early Friday morning and told him to call me if he found a few minutes free. He called almost immediately and we talked 15 minutes about the week of practice, how he planned to attack Herrin and so on. He told me it was the best week of practice his team has had, period, and he was optimistic that the Herrin game was certainly in the ‘winnable’ category.

Based on our conversation I headed to Rich Herrin Gymnasium thinking it was going to be a hard-fought game but one that the Rangers could certainly win.

The game started slowly with both teams missing more shots than they made but Herrin finally pulled ahead and led 9-5 at the end of one quarter. Benton’s five points came on one field goal and three free throws, and I noted on air that it was troubling that Benton managed only a single field goal in eight minutes of play.

The second quarter proved to be nothing short of disastrous for the Rangers as they again managed only one field goal. In the meantime Herrin started finding some offensive rhythm and scored 13 points to take a 22-7 halftime lead. I repeatedly said during the second quarter that I had never seen an entire team go into the deep freeze offensively like the Rangers did in the first half. To illustrate that point, as a team Benton shot 16 percent from the field. And to go along with the offensive woes Benton just seemed flat and unemotional in the first half.

I have watched enough high school games to know that a 15 point lead is not insurmountable. As I often say at halftime, the first three or four minutes of the third quarter, in my estimation, would set the tone for the rest of the game.

Well, to my dismay the first four minutes of the third quarter proved to be the same as the first half – only a little worse. During that span Herrin outscored the Rangers 10-2 to take a commanding (and somewhat embarrassing if you’re a Rangers fan) 32-9 lead midway through the third.

My job as a broadcaster is to report what I see during a game and there is absolutely no way to ‘spin’ a 32-9 score for anything other than what it is – ugly.

So, in a nutshell here was the situation. After 20 minutes of basketball Benton had made three field goals and three free throws and had not yet reached double figures as a team. And on top of that the Rangers had not shown any – and I mean any – inclination that they had the capability or the desire to make a run at the Tigers. And I thought several times during this dismal stretch of basketball about my conversation with Coach Winemiller that very morning about that great week of practice Benton had. High school kids, I thought, are hard to figure out.

Benton finally managed to break double figures following a timeout and then hit another basket after a Herrin miss and trailed 32-13 with 2:30 left in the third. The Rangers finished the third quarter strong on a 7-2 run and cut the Herrin lead to 34-20 heading into the fourth. Still, a 14-point deficit with only eight minutes to play, particularly after Benton had only managed 20 points through three quarters still seemed like to much of a margin for the Rangers to overcome.

In what can only be described as a ‘wild’ fourth quarter Benton kept chipping away and finally cut the Herrin lead to single digits at 34-25. All of a sudden the faithful Benton following, which had been as quiet as a church mouse all evening, came alive … along with an old radio hack (me) who had pretty much thrown the towel in back at the 32-9 point.

I have always had a rule of thumb about a comeback – it it gets to single digits its a ballgame, and clearly with Benton having momentum at its back and the Tigers playing tentative we were headed for an exciting conclusion to what had otherwise been a dreadful game for the Rangers.

The final minutes of the fourth quarter were hectic, frantic and exciting as the Rangers continued to chip away and chip away finally pulling even at 37-37 in the waning seconds. Benton actually had a chance to win it at the buzzer but the shot misfired and we headed to overtime. My initial thought about the four minute overtime was that it would be a shame for the Rangers to make this great comeback and then not be able to finish out with a win.

Benton amazingly got its first lead of the game at the 3:38 mark in overtime – a lead that the Rangers would not relinquish as they pulled out a 44-42 OT victory in the home opener and first conference game.

There is really only one overall stat worth noting in this improbable victory: For the first 20 minutes of the game Herrin led Benton 32-9 and for the next 16 minutes the Rangers outscored Herrin 35-10. I talked to many people immediately following the game and the next day and to a person everybody agreed that it was one for the ages. A good friend summed it up best when he said: “It might have been the ugliest and the most exciting game I’ve ever seen.”

Many years ago my friend, the late Danny “Bubby” Malkovich, witnessed a somewhat miraculous Benton win against Okawville a few days before Christmas, and began his story the following day in the Benton Evening News with this lede: ‘Yes Virgina, there is a Santa Claus.’

As I sacked up my equipment on Friday night I thought of what I had just witnessed and I thought of that great story-beginning by Bubby more than 30 years ago. With that thought in mind I think there is only one appropriate way for me to end this particular offering.

Yes Bubby, there is a Santa Claus … and he is still delivering presents to Rich Herrin Gymnasium in December.