BREAKING NEWS: Watertown falls at state in overtime

MURFREESBORO — Watertown finished ahead of Lake County in several statistical categories in Wednesday's BlueCross Basketball Championships.

But the Purple Tigers' 53-50 overtime loss came down to one of the game's basic fundamentals – free-throw shooting.

Watertown hit just 4 of 14 first-half free throws, leaving several points on the floor despite leading by as much as nine points late in the half and the Falcons in serious foul trouble.

Lake County opened the second half with a 15-2 run to take the lead. Watertown came back and had a shot to win in regulation before Josiah Smith's was blocked by Justin Kimble with the score tied at 47-47.

Zay Coleman connected on four overtime free throws to finish his 16-point night and Devon Jones hit two more to cap a 22-point performance to send Lake County, a team hit by suspensions and forfeits, to the semifinals despite just a 9-23 record.

"We're a team, quite frankly, I thought we erased that because in the last 10-15 ballgames had shot 65-70 percent [from the line] as a team," Watertown coach Matt Bradshaw said after the Purple Tigers' best season in some 90 years of basketball ended at 30-4. "At the end of the day, their supporting cast played a little bit better than our supporting cast did tonight."