Career days and clutch shooting lead App State to win over High Point

By Josh Noel (@Josh_DDH)

HICKORY, N.C. — Dustin Kerns equivocated the beginning and end of Sunday’s basketball game to a bar fight. He posed two questions to his App State team:

How does it start, and how does it end?

The Mountaineers threw the first punch, and the knockout punch, defeating fellow North Carolina foe High Point in overtime Sunday afternoon, 86-78, in the second annual Hickory Hoops Classic. 

“They’ve got a really well-coached, great program,” Kerns said of High Point. “They’ve got more than a team, they’ve got a great program. I think High Point will be right there in contention to do it again and be in March Madness. We beat a great team, a well-coached team, and one that’s going to win a lot of games.”

Alonzo Dodd scored a career-high 25 points for App State, including a personal best 5-for-6 shooting from 3-point range. In total, the Mountaineers made 13 triples Sunday, nearly double their season average of 7.6 and just one short of their season-high. 

“I think they were willing to live with our shooting threes,” Kerns said. “That was part of what they were willing to give up. We’ve got good shooters. We worked on some things offensively to maybe get some catch-and-shoots. Fortunately for us, we made them.”

Luke Wilson also recorded a career day, scoring 19 points and grabbing 10 rebounds for his third straight double-double. 

“Wilson’s been in there on his own with the coaches getting extra work in every day,” Kerns said. “He is really – I think – addicted to how he’s playing, and so he’s fallen in love with the process of being good. The process is loving him back.”

Dodd and Wilson combined for 17 of App State’s 19 makes from the free throw line, an area where the Mountaineers shot under 60 percent headed into Sunday’s contest. Kasen Jennings also scored 21 points for App State. 

App State sprinted out of the gate to a 16-2 lead thanks to four immediate 3-pointers. The Panthers responded with a 14-2 run with four threes of their own to pull within a basket at 18-16. App State regained momentum with an 8-0 run before surrendering a 12-0 spurt to High Point.

Two more Dodd treys and a Jennings jumper were enough to stake App State to a 34-33 halftime lead after Braden Hausen made a three to end the half for High Point. The Mountaineers would re-extend the lead to double digits, at 50-40, with 12:42 in the second half after a trio of triples. A 7-0 Panther response brought High Point within one possession, and then things appeared to spiral out of control for App State. 

In the span of 14 seconds, Dodd was whistled for his third and fourth personal fouls, heading to the bench with 10:25 left in regulation. High Point took advantage with another 16-6 run to go up, 63-56. The Panthers reached their largest lead of the day, at 68-60 with 2:36 to play, after an acrobatic layup by Conrad Martinez. 

High Point then opted to take some of the air out of the basketball to preserve the lead, a decision that would prove costly when App State went three minutes and 35 seconds without a made field goal, yet found itself only down 70-67 with 28 seconds to play.

Hausen missed both free throw attempts after being fouled, opening the door for Jennings to slash to the rim and lay it in to cut the lead to one.

This time, HPU wisely got the ball into the hands of Martinez, a 90 percent free throw shooter, who swished the first free throw before Kerns took a timeout hoping to keep App State’s deficit at two. 

Kerns got exactly that. 

Martinez’s second shot trailed wide left and rimmed into the hands of the Mountaineers. Once again, Jennings went coast-to-coast and banked a layup home to send the game to overtime at 71. 

“We got the miss – and that wasn’t the play – but Kasen Jennings made a play,” Kerns said. “Sometimes, when you’ve got good players, you don’t have to run plays. Your players make plays. He saw an opportunity. I trust him.”

Rejuvenated by the comeback and fueled by an App State-heavy crowd, the Mountaineers took an immediate overtime lead and wouldn’t relinquish it the entirety of the extra period. Dodd, Wilson, and Jennings each contributed to the scoring to re-establish a two-possession ASU lead at 81-75. A Terry Anderson three cut the lead in half, but Dodd calmly knocked down five late free throws to pull the Mountaineers over the finish line. 

Dodd appreciated Kerns’ trust in him in face of foul trouble down the stretch.

“Coach left me in the game in key moments,” Dodd said. “Just to go out there to play with that expression, that crowd, that noise, knowing they have confidence in me brings my game to another level.”

Anderson scored 17 points for the Panthers and Cam’Ron Fletcher recorded his fifth double-double on the season with 10 points and 10 rebounds. Hausen also tied a career high with 10 points for a second straight game. 

Kerns hopes that the Mountaineers can continue playing in Hickory for seasons to come. 

“This was strategic to play in front of the Hickory crowd,” he said. “I thought we had a great fan base and great energy. This is a great area for us to play in, especially around the holidays. That’s something we are trying to do every other year is to play in Hickory, where we’ve got a campus and our great university is growing.” 

App State returns to Boone to begin Sun Belt play with two quick bouts against Coastal Carolina and Georgia State on Thursday and Saturday, respectively. High Point also will head back home to face Mary Baldwin Tuesday before La Salle comes to town on Friday.