Stunned silence: Red Bay falls to Tanner, 53-51

HANCEVILLE — Jeremiah Robinson opened his mouth only to close it just as quickly.

All the Red Bay senior could do was shake his head in disbelief.

“I’m at a loss for words,” Robinson said after the Tigers’ 53-51 loss to Tanner in the Class 2A Northwest Regional semifinals. “I don’t really have anything, sorry.”

The apology wasn’t necessary. It was the same reaction shared by the Red Bay faithful who had made the trip to Hanceville — one of stunned silence.

And it was DaQuaylon Malone who delivered the final blow — on a floater.

Perhaps what made it worse was how easy and efficient that final sequence had been for the Rattlers.

There was Elyjah Jones securing a defensive rebound with 18 seconds left. Cade Dorning taking the outlet pass and strolling his way calmly across halfcourt. Dorning handing the ball back to Jones, who drove and spun his way into the paint only to have four Red Bay defenders encircle him. Jones passed to a wide-open Malone off to the left.

You know the rest. The basket left 2.1 seconds on the clock. It was enough time for Robinson to attempt a last-ditch 3-pointer.

“It’s hard to talk after a game like that,” Coach John Torisky said. “… We just came up short. I wish we had five more seconds. I think we might have been able to get down there and get a good shot, or get something to the basket. But that’s the way it goes sometimes.”

It was not the close the Tigers had hoped for.

They had their own chance to take the lead before Malone’s heroics on Jeremiah Thorne’s 3-point attempt with 22 seconds left. It came a minute after Khalil Luster, Red Bay’s 6-foot-7 ninth grader, tied the game at 51 with 1:22 remaining with a 3-pointer of his own.

Oh, those 22 seconds. Torisky would have liked for Thorne’s shot to be taken with less time on the clock. The Rattlers, however, weren’t complaining. Not on the floor. Not in their locker room.

“They probably don’t even know what happened,” Torisky said of his players. “We took a shot that was probably a little quick. The first thing we wrote on the board (pregame) was transition defense, so once we missed it, I knew we were in trouble.”

In the end, he was right. Luster finished with 15 points and 16 rebounds for the Tigers (19-9). Jaxon Vinson added 10 points.

“At the end of the day, we just came up two points short on a heartbreaking loss,” Torisky said. “And it never gets any easier when you come here and walk away with a loss.”

No, it doesn’t.

It’s why there wasn’t much to say. Or, really, a need to do so.