![]() “I’m going to miss my teammates, my coaches, I’m going to miss going to practice,” Rice said, fighting back tears as he described having to sit out the first quarter with two fouls as excruciating. “He’s taking it tough,” Stamm said before Jaxson came out of the locker room and explained just how difficult this was for him. “I told him to ‘Get us back in the game’.” And Rice almost did with his 24-second-half points on one tough physical drive after another as Ludlow defenders hounded the Vikings all over the court.īut when VMA had to have it, they got it – on a block, or a free throw or a big basket, like when Thole grabbed his own missed free throw and scored to take a 52-51 lead to 55-51 with 1:17 left. “He’s a special kid,” Stamm said of Rice. “When Tommy Wenning got those two early charging fouls on Jaxson,” he said of his teammate who Thole described as “five-two-ish.” That limited Rice to 34 points, in the three quarters he played. “There was a time when we should have gotten him out(side) and put the ball in his hands,” Gould said of a flat spot in the second half when Ludlow came charging back on a 10-run that got the Panthers as close as 52-51 and then again at 57-56.īut ask Thole what the key point in the game was and it wasn’t something he did, or even something at the end, but something his teammate who is one foot and five inches shorter did right away. “I know where I’m going to play in college.” He’s a perimeter guy, a “three” who can handle it, dribble it, pass it and step back and shoot it although he displayed more than a little finesse around the hoop.Īnd he’s left-handed. “We got good looks,” Stamm said, “that’s all you can ask for.”īlocking shots inside isn’t Thole’s future, he says. ![]() “I wasn’t going to let him score,” Thole said, although Ludlow did manage to get two good shots in the final seconds before Thole pulled down the final rebound. He would finish the night with 38 points and five blocked shots – the last one with 8.5 seconds left that ended up in the fifth row. But he came back to score 10 points in the second, although a VMA team that jumped out to a 23-12 first-quarter lead was on top by 14, 38-24, at the half.Īs for Thole, the lefty with a terrific handle poured in 17 points in the first and sealed a 26-point first half in the final 25 seconds with follow and then a step-back three buzzer-beater. Picking up two quick charging fouls in the game’s first 1:01, Rice had to sit out the first quarter. Despite scoring more than 30 points a game and in the top six in the state, Rice has no college offers yet although his coach is working on it for him. There were two under-the-radar stars in this game. They came in here with one thought, Thole said: “We’re gonna’ win.” That was it. Maybe they didn’t want to, they were enjoying it so much.ĭespite needing the win to become Villa Madonna’s “first 10-win team in eight seasons,” Gould said, it didn’t seem to surprise his Vikings. A game that had so many twists and turns in the final minutes – the final seconds – that it was hard for the fans in the raucous crowd to realize it was time to leave. “You win some, you lose some,” Stamm said, “that’s why it’s a beautiful game.” “This is why it’s a wonderful game,” an upbeat Stamm said after spending extended time with his team processing Villa Madonna’s hard-to-describe 59-56 upset of the Panthers. ![]() Henry gym to explain what just happened here. “We realize it,” said Stamm, a three-sport Ludlow alum, who might have been the best person in the St. ![]() His coach, Trevor Gould, says he’s “an under-the-radar guy. ![]() Sure, 6-foot-7, 210-pound Villa Madonna junior Henry Thole has been coming into his own recently, breaking the Vikings’ all-time scoring mark with a 50-point effort Friday against Robertson County that also put him into the 1,000-Point Club.īut not many people seem to realize just how good Thole - the state’s No. Villa Madonn’as Henry Thole (Photo by Bob Jackson) ![]()
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