BOB ETTINGER
GENEVA — Make no mistake about it. Jake McMahan knows he can do the job he’s asked to do. It matters very little whether he’s played every minute of a contest or he hasn’t played at all.
On Friday night, McMahan commented to Geneva boys basketball coach John Marhefka to put him in the game and he’d get the job done. He got his opportunity and he definitely made the most of it in hitting all four of his free-throw attempts in the final 1:20 of the game to give the Eagles a 35-30 Premier Athletic Conference victory over Madison.
“Jake joked that I should put him in the game, he’d go in and hit 11 straight,” Marhefka said. “He went out and proved it. Jake’s been doing a lot of the little things to help us in the winning process.”
After the Blue Streaks (3-10, 3-7) used a 6-0 spurt to capture a 30-27 advantage with 5:43 to play in the game, the Eagles connected on eight-of-nine free throw attempts over the final 3:23.
“They got to the line and knocked them down in crunch time,” Madison coach Pat Moran said. “That’s the way the game went. That was the style of the game. It was just two teams grinding it out.”
“The team feeds off one another,” Geneva forward Cory Morrow said. “We practice way too hard on free throws.”
Morrow hit two free throws to get the Eagles (6-7, 3-7) to within one, 30-29. Then, two minutes later, McMahan gave Geneva the lead, 31-30, by hitting both ends of a one-and-one.
“I thought (making those two) free throws was real important,” Morrow said. “I knew we needed those. We were down and I knew they could give us a spark and bring us back in the game.”
“A good free throw shooter is a good free throw shooter,” McMahan said. “Anybody on the team could’ve done it. The team got me going.”
Nearly a minute after that, Adam Sturkie connected on both ends of a double bonus and McMahan closed the scoring by hitting both ends of another double bonus with 12 seconds to play.
“We saw that other people could make them and that started our confidence,” Sturkie said.
“It’s all about energy,” McMahan said. “When one of us starts to do good, we all start to do good.”
Neither team led by more than four throughout the course of the game and each team used a pair of 6-0 spurts to build a lead or get back to even.
Morrow led the Eagles with nine points, Jimmy Haines added eight points and eight rebounds and Tyler Erb scored six points.
Adam Sweeney paced the Blue Streaks with eight points and Mark Vaughn and Tyler Richmond each tallied six.
