GRAY DEYOSports Writer

The Wildcats survived their game on Friday night, which went into extra time against Lawrence County, winning the matchup 63-57.

With their win over Lawrence Co., the Tullahoma boys’ basketball team improved to 23-3. The win came by no means easy, as the Wildcats walked into the final period of play trailing 41-36. Their path back into the game was kick-started by their two senior starters, Xavier Farrell and Khani Johnson.

The duo scored every single point by the Wildcats in the fourth quarter. They combined for 18 points–both scoring nine apiece—helping Tullahoma knot the game at 54-54. The sharpshooting of the two was huge in the quarter, as they combined for five threes in the period, helping force over time. Johnson and Farrell finished as the first and second leading scorers of the game, with Johnson finishing with 23 and Farrell finishing with 21.

In overtime, Tullahoma did not score a single bucket but was able to muster out more points than Lawrence Co., on the back of some gutsy defense and some big free throws, with the majority of those big foul shots coming from junior guard Alex Bobo.

Bobo has been a great piece to this team all year. He is often not the one dropping in 30 points but is the guy doing a lot of the dirty work and little things that make this 23-3 basketball team run. The junior has been one of the team’s best on-ball defenders this year, one of the better passers, and is also a very underrated ball handler. He has been on the court for all of the clutch moments the Wildcats have been through this year, and this time the ball was in his hands to decide the outcome of the game. He stepped up and made four huge free throws in OT, as the two seniors who showed up huge in the final period of regulation–Johnson and Farrell–scored the other five foul shots, helping Tullahoma to ultimately come out with the win.

The boys’ basketball team will look to close out the best regular season for THS in well over a decade, with another “W” in their final home game of the year against Franklin County on Feb. 11.