The last couple of home games had seen the Bucks give up big leads, as they went 1-1 in those games as they were trying to hold on for the win.

In their final regular season and home game it was Bucktail that battled back to make the game interesting, but ultimately fell 53-50 to Austin.

After leading at the half, a two-point third quarter allowed the visitors to take a 42-35 lead into the fourth quarter.

Paced by Brody Pentz’s 13 fourth quarter points, a foul shot by the Bucktail sniper tied the game back up 46-46 with 3:05 remaining.

Brayden Stuckey hit a 3-point shot to put his team up 49-46, before Pentz dramatically answered with his own 3-pointer seconds later to tie things back up at 49-49 with exactly one minute remaining.

Unfortunately for the Bucks, Jacob Hooftallen scored two of his game-high 25 points with 20 seconds left. Bucktail intentionally fouled Hooftallen on the following possession where he added a pair of free throws. Pentz added a foul shot with six seconds left, but the Panthers wound up with the dramatic three-point win in the final seconds.

“Outhustled,” coach Mike Charcalla described when asked about his team following the game.

“That third quarter especially, we weren’t crashing the board, we were almost standing around at times, waiting for the balls to come to us, that’s a tough way for us to lose and doesn’t represent at all the way that we have played in recent weeks”.

The Bucks (6-14) will await to find who and where they will be at early next week in the D4 A Playoffs.

Bucktail 9 24 2 15–50

Austin 10 18 14 11–53

Austin scoring: Jacob Hooftallen 6 13-17 25; Keaton Shupe 1 0-0 3; Dawson Hooftallen 4 3-4 12; Brayden Stuckey 3 0-0 9; Warren Nelson 2 0-0 4.

Bucktail scoring: Gary Whipp 3 2-2 8; Brody Pentz 8 4-6 21; Will Steele 1 0-2 3; Brett Mason 3 3-3 10; Xander Shearer 1 0-0 2; John Green 2 1-2 6.