The Bowie Jackrabbits had to fight tooth and nail to earning a playoff spot by beating Jacksboro in the play-in game on Friday night.
The Jackrabbits beat the Tigers 51-47 in overtime to get the final playoff spot in the district.
Bowie was hoping it could avoid the situation. Earlier in the week on Feb. 11 the Jackrabbits played their final district game at home against the already crowned district champs Iowa Park.
A win could possibly avoid a tough situation since district play had been so evenly played for most of the teams.
The Hawks had first place wrapped up even with a loss, so the Jackrabbits had more to play for and was hoping the home crowd could help push them over the top.
As the game wore on, Bowie slowly trailed farther away. The Jackrabbits struggled to score in the first half and Iowa Park’s great team passing seemed one step ahead of Bowie’s zone defense and found holes in the mid-range for quick shots that were going in.
The Jackrabbits trailed 23-10 at halftime.
Bowie upped its physicality to try and throw off the free flowing passing from the Hawks and started to come back a bit. The Jackrabbits more than doubled their first half total in the third quarter and cut the lead to single-digits 30-21 heading into the fourth quarter.
Bowie upped the intensity even more and got as close as four points from Iowa Park, down 34-30 with 2:10 left in the game.
Unfortunately, Bowie could not pull any late game magic like it has in the past and lost 37-30.
This set up a four-team tie in district between Bowie, Jacksboro, Holliday and Henrietta for the final two playoff spots as all teams had a 6-6 record. The good news is the new playoff format meant the teams only had to play one game instead of a round robin tournament.
Bowie played Jacksboro for the second seed in division one since Iowa Park had the first seed locked down as district champ. City View finished with a 7-5 record and earned the first seed in the division two bracket. The second seed in that division would be battled between Holliday and Henrietta.
The Jackrabbits had lost the first game between the two teams back before the holiday break by two points. The second time around in late January saw Bowie win commandingly by 12 points at home, but that just speaks to the topsy turvy district competition had proven to be for almost all of the teams.
The game started with Bowie jumping out to a 7-2 lead in the first quarter, but the Tigers closed to cut the lead to 9-8 after the first quarter.
Jacksboro picked up its man defense intensity, with particular attention on the Jackrabbits leading scorer Mann, trying to deny him from even getting the ball. Bowie continued to find many ways to score while the Tigers spread the ball out and finished on some nifty interior passing to take the lead.
The Jackrabbits trailed 21-16 at halftime.
Bowie seemed to make a commitment in the second half to force the action and started to relentlessly try to score around the basket. The team was awarded with a lot of foul calls and free throws which frustrated Jacksboro.
Particularly, Bowie was finding Goodman in the post and he was making the most of his touches, scoring eight of the team’s 12 points to get back into the game.
At one point early in the third quarter the Tigers lead was 27-17, but by the end the Jackrabbits had cut it to 31-28 heading into the final period.
Jacksboro started the fourth quarter great, with back-to-back 3-pointers and an offensive putback pushing its lead to 39-31.
Bowie slowly clawed its way back through tough defense and clutch shotmaking. The Jackrabbits started to press to not allow the Tigers to sit back and run the clock down and it paid off.
Farris stole the ball and scored in transition to tie the game up at 41-41 with 2:14 left in the game.
Each team scored one basket, Jacksboro a mid-range pull-up and the Jackrabbits finding a cutting Adam Pickett for a layup to make it 43-43 at the end of regulation.
In overtime it was the seniors Farris and Pickett who scored most of the points, with Farris scoring five of the team’s eight points to pull away in the shortened period.
Bowie won 51-47.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekly edition of the Bowie News.

For pictures from last week’s games, click here https://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=bnews1&AID=6873155&T=1 and here https://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=bnews1&AID=6873157&T=1

Look to the Bowie News social media pages for up to date playoff scores and information on future playoff basketball games.