FREDERICKTOWN – At first glance, it’s Kaid Carpenter’s shoulders that stand out.
The Fredericktown senior runs 6-foot-6, 220 pounds, but it’s the way those pounds are allocated that draws attention. Carpenter is built like a lion. His golden mane flows down to a chiseled physique, with tree-trunk legs and a barrel chest accentuated by two bowling balls below the neck.
He has broad shoulders. The kind built for making contact and taking contact. The kind built for carrying the load.
Fredericktown can be thankful for that.
Carpenter banged out a career-high 35 points on Friday night, lifting the Freddies to a 79-70 victory over county foe Danville and a 9-0 start in the Knox-Morrow Athletic Conference.
The senior scored 13 in the first half and 22 in the second, including 11 in both the third and fourth quarter. He knocked down a three-pointer early, but most of his damage was done in and around the paint – often through contact, with Danville defenders hanging all over him.
His toughness and determination helped Fredericktown withstand several Blue Devil runs, allowing the Freddies to pull away late in front of a raucous home crowd.
“I felt good tonight. I got really loose. I felt like, if I shot it, it just was going in. So I figured I’ve gotta take more shots,” Carpenter said with a smile. “My team did a good job of passing me the ball, hitting me when I was open tonight, and I think I did a good job of getting rebounds, getting put-backs. And my whole team helped.”
The win moved Fredericktown one step closer to its eighth conference title – and its second in three years. The Freddies remain a-game-and-a-half ahead of Centerburg for first place in the KMAC, and can clinch at least a share of the title with a win Wednesday at Mount Gilead.
“I think that the message stays the same. We have to focus on one day at a time,” Fredericktown head coach Derek Dibling said.
“We told the guys tonight, ‘Enjoy it, but we’ll go back to work and (have our) eyes on Mount Gilead.’ We’ll get ready for Mount Gilead and take it one day at a time. So far (the key has been), I think they understand just taking it a day at a time.”
1. Fredericktown (9-0)**
2. Centerburg (8-2)
3. Northmor (7-3)
4. Mount Gilead (5-4)
5. Danville (2-8)
6. Cardington (1-7)
6. East Knox (1-7)
**Fredericktown beat Centerburg in the first of two meetings this season. The two schools will meet again Feb. 3. Each KMAC team plays 12 league games.
THE GAME: Fredericktown emerged from a back-and-forth first quarter Friday with a 16-12 lead.
And the home team kept pounding in the second.
A pull-up triple from Carpenter stretched the lead to 21-14 with 6:20 left until halftime. Then, after Danville cut it to 21-19 on a transition lay-in from senior Levi Lyons, the Freddies made another run.
Back-to-back steals led to transition buckets from seniors Ben Mast and Luke Bean, and an up-and-under bank shot from Carpenter grew the lead to 9. Mast found Bean in transition moments later, off yet another steal, making it 30-21 with 2:39 left.
But Fredericktown did not score again. The Blue Devils kept the home team silent, and did some damage of their own, closing the half with 4 straight points (all on free-throws) to make it 30-25 at intermission.
The third quarter was all Fredericktown.
The Freddies outscored the Blue Devils 24-13, using relentless full-court pressure and offensive rebounding to bully the visitors.
Senior Brady Lester converted two straight lay-ins, one off a put-back and one in transition, to make it 35-27. Then, after a quick bucket from Danville senior Spencer Payne, the Freddies rattled off 7 more points, with Carpenter and Lester both scoring from close-range and junior Trevor Bellman netting a wing triple (after three straight offensive rebounds) to stretch the lead to 42-29.
Carpenter then powered in three straight buckets, including a mid-range post jumper and two and-one lay-ins (he made the free-throws as well), to widen the lead to 17. The only thing stopping the senior was blood on his shorts, which forced Dibling to sub him out with three minutes left in the quarter.
“He’s tough to spot because he can put the ball on the deck, he can handle the ball a little bit, and he can score at like three different levels,” Dibling said of Carpenter. “So the biggest thing is him getting to his spots, where he’s more efficient in some spots than others. That’s the key. He’s gotta get to his spots.”
Fredericktown finished the third quarter strong in Carpenter’s absence. A lay-in from senior Xavier Mullins gave Fredericktown its biggest lead of the night – 20 points – and the Freddies held a 54-38 advantage heading into the fourth quarter.
But the Blue Devils weren’t done yet.
Trailing 63-48 with five minutes left, Danville turned on the jets, scoring 9 straight points in 90 seconds to bring the road crowd to life.
Senior Max Payne followed free-throws from juniors Walker Weckesser and Kendall Carter with a put-back lay-in, narrowing the deficit to 63-52. Spencer Payne then scored twice in transition off of Fredericktown turnovers – first on a pull-up triple from the wing, then on his patented turnaround mid-range jumper – to make it 63-57 with 3:42 remaining.
Lester muscled in a four-point possession all by himself – going 1-for-2 from the free-throw line before gathering his own miss and converting an and-one lay-in – to stretch the lead back to 10. And Fredericktown senior Teegan Ruhl kept it there, cutting through the lane for a bucket that made it 69-59 with 2:06 left.
But Danville still wouldn’t go away.
After a lay-in from senior Dustin Beckett and a turnover from Fredericktown, the Blue Devils had the ball, down 8, with 90 seconds remaining. Spencer Payne was fouled, and after swishing his first free-throw, he missed the second. But he hustled down his own rebound and kicked it out to Weckesser, who stood wide-open on the wing.
The junior forward drained it. Danville now trailed 69-65 with 1:22 left.
Unfortunately for the visitors, that’s as close as they would get. Fredericktown regrouped, and Carpenter took over once again, bullying his way to an and-one lay-in that grew the lead to 7. He knocked down two more free-throws with 30 seconds left, making it 75-68, and scored once more in transition to put the final nail in the coffin.
It wasn’t pretty, but it was a KMAC win. Dibling said afterwards that in the end, that’s all that matters.
“There were some decisions made there late that I wasn’t exactly thrilled about, but I don’t know, maybe we haven’t been in that situation a ton,” Dibling said. “So it’s something we obviously have to work on, those time-and-score situations. We could obviously do a little bit better, because we just didn’t do a great job of closing things out.”
Carpenter finished with 35 points Friday to lead the Freddies. Lester added 18, while Bean and Ruhl both scored 8.
Spencer Payne led Danville in scoring with 25 points. Weckesser had 13 and Lyons had 10 to anchor the visitors.
KEY TAKEAWAYS: Hidden in Carpenter’s legendary performance Friday was a star showing from Danville’s Spencer Payne.
The senior was nearly unguardable, scoring on lay-ins and turnaround jumpers and triples from all over the floor. He scored 19 of his 25 points in the second half, catalyzing the fourth-quarter comeback and keeping the Blue Devils in it late.
“He’s been able to make those shots since he was a fourth grader, fifth grader. He’s always been the smallest kid, basically, on the floor,” Danville head coach Steve Lyons said of his point guard.
“So he developed that kind of hidden fall-away shot, and you’ve never seen a kid that can put the ball on the front of the rim and get it to go back and hit the backboard and drop in for him, over and over and over again. Coming into the game tonight, he was shooting almost 86% from the line.
“I say it all the time – I don’t know how many times I’ve walked down the floor, however he’s made a shot, and said, ‘Man, do I love Spencer Payne.’ Great, great kid. Not a vocal leader, but man, he leads by example. I don’t know what I’ll do without him next year.”
And it wasn’t just Spencer Payne. Danville received contributions from nearly everyone Friday night. Steve Lyons called it one of his team’s best performances yet.
“Were out of it there at 18 points down, then we got it back to 4. Then it got back up to 10, and we got it back down. It’s the hardest I think we’ve played all year. I’m really proud,” Steve Lyons said.
“They’ve been playing harder. We played a pretty tough game on Tuesday night against Cardington, where we had an 18-point lead (and it) got down to a 2-point lead and we were able to come back and win by 12. But I think we’re starting to play harder, starting to play a little bit smarter, just right there. We started a month behind (because of football), but at this point, we should be caught up.”
Steve Lyons said games like Friday’s offer a window into Danville’s postseason potential.
“The way we played tonight, you know, to come back that way … we’re not gonna play anybody in our district that’s gonna be as good as these guys,” he said. “And in an atmosphere like tonight, we very easily could have packed it up and went home down 35. We kind of did that at Centerburg last week. We didn’t do it tonight. So I think that gets us ready to play at districts.”
But Friday night belonged to Fredericktown. And try as they might, the visiting Blue Devils simply had no answer for Carpenter, who played perhaps his finest game as a Freddie.
Steve Lyons said he tried everything against the multi-sport senior, but nothing seemed to stick.
“You can’t teach size. You can’t make our guys taller. Unfortunately, at Danville, we don’t have anybody that size,” Steve Lyons said with a chuckle. “We thought we had a fairly good matchup with Levi (Lyons) guarding him. He has a little bit quicker feet. Kendall (Carter) is bigger, but maybe his feet aren’t quite as quick. We thought we had a good matchup with Levi, but he made a bunch of shots tonight.”
Carpenter imposed his will physically in the second half, scoring on an array of mid-range jumpers and around-the-basket finishes. He converted three and-one lay-ins (and made all three free-throws), while also attacking the glass hard on both ends of the floor.
“I think sometimes we maybe take it a little bit for granted, but he has that ability,” Dibling said. “I think the biggest thing for him tonight was he got to the rim, got to the free-throw line, and saw it go through, which really helped his confidence.
“And I think he even understood that we needed him. He needed to help carry the load tonight. Because he’s a super unselfish guy, and sometimes, you know, he’s not selfish enough. (But) he stepped up big-time when we needed him.”
Carpenter said the environment fueled him. It wasn’t just the “MVP” chants from the Fredericktown student section; it was also the sizable road crowd that Danville brought to the game.
“It was a great atmosphere tonight. It was fun, there were a lot of people here. Huge crowd. And even (Danville), they brought a lot of people. So it was fun. Hearing their crowd all yelling at foul calls and stuff, it just gave us so much more momentum and so much more to play for.”
And now, after another hard-fought league win, the Freddies stand one game away from clinching at least a share of their second conference title in three years.
Carpenter said he’s excited about the opportunity, but he knows there’s more work to be done.
“We know every game’s important. We’re really looking forward to Centerburg and Northmor – they’ve done good in the league as well. And we just need to play harder – as hard as we can. Can’t come out flat,” Carpenter said.
“We’ve been coming out flat in a couple games and that’s not gonna work against Centerburg or Northmor.”
