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Browse by City/ StateIndiana team wins after trailing by 29 in fourth quarter
The 29-point deficit facing the South Dearborn High School (Aurora, Ind.) boys basketball team in the fourth quarter on Friday night was as close to insurmountable as it gets.
"It had to be a perfect storm," first-year coach Rick Shumate said. "Everything had to go right for us."
Amazingly, it did.
South Dearborn scored the final 30 points of the game to defeat visiting East Central (St. Leon) 55-54, setting a record for the biggest fourth-quarter comeback in Indiana history.
"I've seen some rallies in 18 years of coaching, but nothing like that," Shumate said. "The amazing thing is that we were able to sustain it for that long and follow through on it."
Class 3A South Dearborn, located in southeast Indiana, was 1-10 entering the game and had lost to East Central 72-39 six weeks prior. Friday's game seemed headed for a similar score when East Central scored early in the fourth quarter to take a 54-25 lead.
That would be the Trojans' last point. Shumate went to a five-guard lineup and pressed East Central full court. South Dearborn whittled the deficit to 16 with a little under four minutes to play. Shumate said East Central was 0-for-5 from the free-throw line in the final three minutes, including three misses on the front end of one-and-ones. Weston Taylor scored and was fouled with 11.4 seconds left. His free throw gave South Dearborn a 55-54 lead.
East Central, which fell to 6-7, missed a long jump shot as time expired.
Only a rally by Forest Park (Ferdinand) from a 31-point deficit in an 81-77 overtime win over Heritage Hills (Lincoln City) in 2003-04 qualifies as a bigger comeback in Indiana, according to basketball historian Leigh Evans.
"It's what's on everybody's tongues around here," Shumate said in a phone interview Monday. "A lot of people got up and left before the fourth quarter started. I got some phone calls this weekend from people who flipped over on the radio on their way home and couldn't believe it. It's always a big buzz around here to beat East Central, but to win like that was really something."
