The saying patience is a virtue sometimes applies to basketball.

Mexico vs Eugene Photo Gallery

That wasn’t the case for the Class 4 No. 7 Mexico boys on Tuesday night as they applied aggressive full-court defense to overtime a 50-41 deficit heading into the fourth quarter to defeat Class 2 No. 3 Eugene 82-77, giving the Eagles their first loss of the season. The Bulldogs finished with 13 steals in the game — with six having at least one — after only having three at halftime.

Head coach Darren Pappas said Mexico (9-1) had to try something after not making much of a dent into Eugene’s lead through three quarters. The Eagles (8-1) stretched their lead to as much as 11 points and seemed to respond to the Bulldogs’ attempts to cut into it. With only one more quarter left, Mexico made Eugene feel the pressure.

"It was a do-or-die situation," head coach Darren Pappas said. "They were on a run. We've got to go to it. Luckily, coach (Dion "Bosco") Nunnelly calls all the defense, and he decided we have to do something to generate some type of energy. We started putting a little pressure on them and making them turn it over.”

The results were almost immediate as the Bulldogs rattled off a 15-4 run in the first half of the fourth quarter to momentarily take a 56-54 lead after Jaydon Eldridge swiped two steals deep into the backcourt for an assist and his own layup.

“Before, we were sitting back,” Eldridge said. “We pressed and put a lot of pressure on them, made them turn the ball over and got fastbreak layups.”

“We’re going to need that out of him,” Pappas said. “We’re going to need him to step up offensively because he’s been struggling shooting it. However, when he finally got some shots to go in around the rim and he got a 3 to fall, it just opened up.”

Mexico received key late contributions from several players. DJ Long scored 10 points after the third quarter and finished with a game-high 26 points and four steals, Eldridge dropped 11 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter and overtime, Charlie Fisher hit three of his four 3-pointers in the second half to finish with 16 points, and PJ Perkins had two buckets that drew fouls in overtime as part of his 12 points and seven rebounds and also had two dunks that energized the crowd.

Eugene had four score in double figures and started to take control of the game in the second quarter, when the Eagles hit four 3-pointers. Isaac Busch led Eugene with 22 points, Ethan Wunderlich followed with 15 points and two 3-pointers, Justice Allen had 14 points and Ryan Lepper had 13 points and two 3-pointers. Eugene’s program has earned three district titles in the previous three years, 14 straight seasons with at least 14 wins and this season’s Eagles had defeated four Class 4 schools already, including 10th-ranked Hallsville.

“They’re so patient with the basketball, and they spread you out,” Pappas said. “They’ve got a lot of weapons. They’ve got guys that can shoot it, they’ve got guys that can get downhill and get to the rim, and (Busch) has excellent vision, can get to the rim, can pass it and has got a motor that just doesn’t stop. He’s got that energy like PJ in that they just never stop.”

Mexico has had an unofficial quota of playing at least one overtime game in each of the past five seasons, including this one. The Bulldogs are 4-2 in those games and are 3-0 in the last three seasons, which happens to be the amount that Long has been a Bulldog. Long said while he’d rather not go to overtime, those victories need “all of the energy that we have and give it to the court and give it to the game,” which applied to Mexico’s defense late in the game.

“We realized they weren’t holding the ball very well,” Long said. “Our defense is really putting pressure on teams. We’d pressure them and they started turning the ball over and allowed us to score a lot more points in transition.”

Long made a habit of cutting through the Eugene defense to score at the rim, including a layup that tied the game at 69 and sent the game into overtime. His teammates, such as Perkins, Eldridge and Kaden Benne, took over the scoring in the overtime period. Benne just missed being the fifth Bulldog in double figures at eight points but had the game-winning 3-pointer to make it 80-77 with about 11 seconds left.

“Shout out to KB for hitting that big 3,” Long said. 

That shot was Benne’s first 3-pointer, and the other Bulldogs also started knocking down more perimeter shots. Prior to his steals in the fourth quarter, Eldridge knocked down his first 3-pointer since the first quarter to cut the deficit to two points, giving Mexico one of four 3-pointers after the third quarter compared to three made in the first three quarters. 

“It makes you feel a lot better, obviously,” Pappas said in response to when more perimeter shots start falling. “Kaden Benne’s big 3 in the overtime at the top of the key, and Charlie Fisher had a lot of 3s and he’s battling some illness, but that’s just from working his tail off on the defensive end.”

“I was just telling myself shooters shoot,” Eldridge said. “You miss, shoot again. One’s going to fall eventually.”

Mexico has some time off for Christmas break but not that much as it starts the US Bank Holiday Invitational in Rolla on Dec. 27-29, with its next game at 2:30 p.m. on Dec. 27 against Hazelwood West at Missouri S&T. Pappas said any game can be won in the future if the Bulldogs remember what makes their defense so effective.

“Everybody’s got to fly around and do their job,” Pappas said. “We continue to preach that, ‘Do your job.’ You can’t blame anybody else. If you do your job, good things will happen.”