ORRVILLE — Keith head coach Tommy Tisdale made sure to schedule a tough opponent to close out the season, and the Bears held up their end of the bargain by winning.

John Pettway outscored the Montgomery Academy Eagles (17-7) 15-10 in the first half as class 1A’s No. 3 Keith Bears (21-6) beat the No. 10 team in class 3A 53-47 Thursday at Keith on senior night. Pettway led all scorers with 23 points, 20 of which came in the first half.

“I knew it wouldn’t be a blowout,” Tisdale said. “I knew it would be a close game. We scheduled the game for a reason, so we could face stiff competition going into the tournament.”

The Bears raced out to a 20-5 lead in the first quarter, building a lead that the Eagles spent the rest of the game trying to erase. The Bears led 24-10 at the end of the first quarter.

Pettway scored twice early in the second quarter, extending the Keith lead to 29-14. After a four minute scoring drought, Dontavius Thomas made two 3-pointers late in the second quarter to push Keith’s lead to 35-18.

The Bears led 35-20 at halftime. Thomas scored a pair of layups to begin the third quarter, putting Keith up 39-24.

Morris Collins hit a turnaround layup with 5:15 remaining in the third quarter to give Keith a 41-26 advantage. Thomas added to his 10-point scoring night with a floater late in the third quarter to make it 45-32 in favor of Keith.

The Eagles reduced the Bears’ lead to nine points, as they trailed 47-38 at the end of the third quarter. With just under five minutes to play, Montgomery had cut the Keith lead to 48-43.

Devion Johnson kept Montgomery from creeping any closer when he picked off a pass and took it to the hoop for a layup to put Keith in front 51-43 with 2:30 on the clock. Justyn Pettway put the finishing touches on the victory with a layup to give the Bears a 53-45 lead with 50 seconds remaining.

“We responded when we had to, and we found a way to win and I think going forward that’s what we’ll need from here on out,” Tisdale said.

 

Keith 31, Montgomery 20 (girls)

Both girls’ teams came into Thursday’s game with only two losses all season, but early on, neither team wanted to score more than two points.

Despite a slow start, class 1A’s No. 1 Keith Bears (26-2) defeated class 3A’s No. 4 Montgomery Academy Eagles (21-3) 31-20 Thursday at Keith. Harriet Winchester led all scorers with 16 points, 11 of which came in the third quarter.

“Sometimes you have a bad game,” said Keith head coach Cecil Williams. “Everything started out slow. We got frustrated for a minute, but after halftime, we gained our composure.”

At the end of the first quarter, the Bears had held the Eagles to two points, but had only managed to score four points. Zykia Pettway gave Keith a spark in the second quarter with six points, but she still wasn’t pleased with the team’s overall effort in the season finale.

“We played horrible,” Pettway said. “We didn’t play our game. We didn’t play with high intensity.”

The Bears led 13-7 at halftime, and Winchester helped put the game away early in the second half. She knocked down three 3-pointers in the third quarter to give Keith a 27-14 lead at the end of the third quarter.

Keith’s boys’ and girls’ teams will host the class 1A, area 5 tournament next week. Both teams will play the winner of Ellwood Christian and Isabella in the area tournament championship Wednesday.