Boys’ Basketball

Sidney 50, Oxford 45

OXFORD – Sidney survived the biggest threat to its unbeaten Midstate Athletic Conference record making two big plays in the final 40 seconds to defeat Oxford Tuesday night.

Coming out of a timeout, forward Joe Matzel hit guard Billy Kozak with a bounce pass for a back-door layup giving Sidney the lead, 46-45 with 38 seconds left. After another timeout, Sidney senior Damian Zimmer picked up a steal out of  full-court press, and dropped in a layup for the three-point lead.

Oxford scrambled for three three-point attempts on its final possession – none of them particularly close to going in. Matzel tacked on a pair of insurance free throws for the final margin.

“I was happy with everything except the final outcome,” said Oxford coach Tim Davis. “We’ve improved throughout the season, and with a couple more adjustments, we can stay right there with the best teams in our league.”

Oxford trailed by as many as 11 in the third quarter as a Matzel layup made it 36-25 midway through the period. The Blackhawks trimmed that margin back to four by the end of the quarter as Paul Wonka made a driving layup, and Cameron Heggie canned a pull-up jumper with less than 10 seconds left.

Sidney was held without a field goal the first six minutes of the fourth, and Andrew Golden’s three-point play gave Oxford its only lead of the second half, 45-44.

Golden had 18 for Oxford and Heggie netted 12.