Bluffton Stays Clean

The Bluffton Tigers completed their perfect regular season with an exciting two point win over Southwood. Bluffton, 21-0, heads into the post season to face Adams Central (0-19) on Tuesday.

Trailing 40-37 with 27.2 seconds to go, Bluffton sophomore Cody Cochran launched a long three-pointer that split the net to give the Tigers a breather with 20.4 remaining.

After Southwood senior Aaron Shaw missed the front end of a one-plus-one free-throw opportunity, Bluffton junior forward Brock Woodward pulled down his ninth rebound with about 13 seconds to go and started a Tiger race down the floor.

Tiger junior Jared Johnson took a pass from Woodward and put up an unbelievable shot with 4.6 seconds left that gave Bluffton a thrilling 42-40 edge.

Southwood quickly called a timeout with 4.2 seconds. On the Knights’ inbounds play, Shaw dribbled over the midcourt stripe and called timeout with 1.6 seconds to go.

On the ensuing inbounds play, Shaw flared up a short three with Bluffton’s Matt Campbell in front of him and the final buzzer sounded.

Was this closer than the Leo Game, where a scoring error kept the Tigers clean? Hard to say... but as Mr. Dormire used to tell the tennis team, "The better you are, the luckier you get."