Injury forces Israel Barnes to post in 35-point performance for Southeast

Southeast received difficult news this week when it learned freshman guard Micah Jacques had suffered a knee injury that will sideline him indefinitely.

The injury forced Israel Barnes to slide down from small forward to play power forward for Saturday’s game against Goddard at Koch Arena.

Barnes responded with 35 points and 13 rebounds in his new role, as Southeast held on for an 80-68 victory to end a two-game losing skid and improve to 5-4.

“At this level, he’s such a privilege to have because he’s versatile like that,” Southeast coach Melvin Herring said. “At the next level, he’s going to be a guard. But he’s willing to help out and step up and take on that new challenge. That’s what the great ones do.”

Unlike Southeast, which hadn’t played since Tuesday, Goddard was playing on back-to-back days. This seemed to affect Goddard in transition, where Southeast was routinely able to capitalize when it was able to push the pace.

This was most telling at the start of the fourth quarter, when Southeast turned an eight-point lead into an 18-point lead with a 12-2 run in less than two minutes.

But Goddard found a spark in Bryant Mocaby (22 points) and Ian McSwain (21), who helped lead the Lions back on a 13-0 run of their own to whittle the lead to 71-65 with four minutes to go.

“I was really proud of the way our kids battled,” Goddard coach Kyle Taylor said. “We’ve done a good job of that all season, but we need to do a better job of not getting behind. We just need a few more plays to go our way.”

When Goddard rallied, it was Barnes who was able to answer back with baskets of his own. Often he would miss his initial shot, only to follow it with a put-back.

Barnes said he felt like he had to become a larger presence in the paint for Southeast, which largely plays without much size down low.

“Players just play, so I’m just going to try to do the best I can to help my team out,” said Barnes, who upped his average to 27.8 through nine games. “We just out here trying to get dubs every day.”

Without its second-leading scorer in Jacques, Southeast had to rely on a new cast, which featured players such as Ollie McGee and Tre Campbell in expanded roles.

“It makes the team have to step up even more and it brings us together, I think,” Herring said. “Everybody has had to shift and we brought up a couple of kids and I thought they responded well on the big stage. Those guys can do that.”

This story was originally published January 14, 2017 at 4:23 PM with the headline "Injury forces Israel Barnes to post in 35-point performance for Southeast."