By Evan Merrill
NKyTribune contributor
FRANKFORT — Jake Ohmer of Scott and Sean McNeil of Cooper helped Kentucky snap a 17-game losing streak in the annual boys’ basketball summer all-star series with Indiana on Sunday with a thrilling 111-110 double-overtime victory at the Frankfort Civic Center.
Ohmer led all scorers with 30 points and made an impact on the defensive end with five steals and seven rebounds. McNeil chipped in six points and four rebounds.
“It means everything,” McNeil said after the long-awaited victory for Kentucky’s seniors. “We’ve been practicing, putting in work for this exact moment right here. It’s been eight or nine years coach (Rodney Woods) said since we’ve got the win. It definitely feels good in the locker room, celebrating in there.”
“It’s a great feeling to know we were the team that won because you never know when Kentucky’s going to win again,” said Ohmer, who was recruited by Western Kentucky University after his performance in the state high school tournament last March.
Indiana defeated Kentucky, 94-89, in the first game of this year’s series on Saturday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianpolis. Kentucky rallied from a 12-point deficit in the final minutes of that game and cut the lead to 90-89 on a 3-pointer by Ohmer with 49 seconds left.
In Sunday’s game, the two teams traded the lead during the first half and the score was tied, 44-44, at the break. Kentucky started to pull away in the second half and led by as much as 16 points, but Indiana managed to tie it at 93.
“All credit to them, great players,” McNeil, a Bellarmine University recruit, said of Indiana’s comeback. “But I’m just glad we pulled it out and made history.”
Ohmer hit a clutch 3-pointer with just over a minute to go in regulation, but Indiana tied the score to force overtime. In the second overtime period, Ohmer scored eight of his team’s 15 points. He made two free throws with 38 seconds left to extend the lead to three.
McNeil got a lot of playing time down the stretch after point guard Taveion Hollingsworth, Mr. Kentucky Basketball from Lexington Dunbar, got into foul trouble.
“We were just trying to control the tempo of the game, just take good shots, and that helped us win,” Ohmer said.
Ohmer and Hollingsworth will be teammates at Western Kentucky. They’ll be on campus this week after finishing their high school careers playing in the historic all-star rivalry.
“It prepared me a lot (for college),” Ohmer said. “We practiced two times a day for the week. It was just helping us get prepared for playing kids in college because it’s going to be just like this. It was a battle every day.”
McNeil is headed back to Bellarmine where he has already begun to put in work for his freshman season with one of the nation’s top NCAA Division I teams.
“I’m so excited,” he said. “I’ve already been down there a couple days. I love it down here and I think we’re going to do something special.”
In the girls all-star series between Kentucky and Indiana seniors, each team won a game in their opponent’s state capital. Kentucky won Saturday’s game, 75-67, in Indianapolis and Indiana won Sunday’s game, 58-51, in Frankfort.
Bellarmine is a DIVISION I team, not Division II as you reported.