He was cold all game long.
It wasn't the same Tre Vaughn who had taken over for Lawton High in last weekend's tournament action.
But when they needed him most, the Wolverines leader answered the bell with a dramatic game-winning layup to give No. 15 Lawton a thrilling 46-45 victory over rival, No. 5 Eisenhower, in Ike's gym no less.
It was fitting that another city rivalry would come down to one final possession.
Following the missed front end of a one-and-one free throw by Ike's Romio Harvey, Lawton (10-4) had one final chance to complete its epic comeback after trailing by 11 points entering the final quarter.
Vaughn wove through the entire Ike (7-5) defense — down the left sideline past the comedic Ike student section before cutting to the middle of the court.
He then slashed toward the rim and laid a little extra English on the ball with his kiss off the glass as the ball cleanly fell in right before the buzzer sounded.
Vaughn knew his plan of attack before he even had the ball in his hands.
"I just screamed 'Outlet, outlet!' just like in practice," Vaughn said. "He hit me and once I saw the open lane I took it. I saw the lane all the way from the other side of the court."
Then the entire Lawton bench stormed the visiting court as the crowd went berzerk.
No one on either side could hardly believe what had just happened. A rivalry game could not have been scripted any more dramatic.
Pumped up after his game-winning shot, Vaughn had a message for his teammates as they met him on the court just seconds after the Wolverines pulled of the stunner on the road.
"Honestly, I said 'This game is for all of you guys,'" Vaughn recalled. "I was struggling throughout this game and they picked up the slack. Mark (Berry) and Ashawnti (Hunter) got all the rebounds. They are going to be great players."
He was right. Berry scored nine points and Hunter led Lawton with 18, as he terrorized the Eagles inside. He muscled up shot after shot off the glass, absorbing contact and finishing at the rim. The Eagles — without one of their best players DeShawn Cruse due to the flu — had no answer for Hunter's size in the paint.
"As a freshman, that's enormous. Enormous," Lawton coach Eric Wiley repeated, still in awe. "That's the best game I've seen him play. He's only 14 and has a lot more growing to do."
The entire Lawton team appeared to have some growing to do after three quarters. Nothing seemed to be going right for the Wolverines, who couldn't seem to get a defensive stop against the Eagles.
Midway through the third after Ike's transition game had led to multiple quick baskets, a frustrated Vaughn told his teammates walking to the huddle, "We need to make sure we're getting back on defense."
From then on, Lawton did just that. And when Ike began milking the clock and spreading it out in the fourth quarter, Lawton began trapping and forced multiple turnovers to complete its comeback.
"We were trying to double team and when they made a mistake, we can get a trap and a turnover," Wiley said.
In addition to the turnovers, Lawton got its key stops and held Ike to two points in the fourth quarter. Long before his game-winner, Vaughn planted the seeds of the comeback. The 14-2 run that no one saw coming started because of Vaughn's defensive message late in the third.
Harvey led Ike with 17 points and played brilliantly the entire game, but the one missed free throw ended up costing the Eagles the game. Kinyon Parker added 10 points with two triples for Ike.
Freshmen sink big shots, lead LHS girls past Ike
They are only freshmen. Most teams don't build their foundation upon them.
But Lawton High's Sharonica Hartsfield and Tyiesha Anderson proved that theory wrong on Tuesday night when they combined to score 31 of the Wolverines 39 points to give Lawton (4-8) a narrow 39-38 victory at Eisenhower (2-10).
The score was all knotted up at 24 after the third quarter, but in the fourth, Hartsfield (16 points) and Anderson (15 points) each knocked down clutch corner-pocket three-pointers and scored 13 of the team's 15 fourth quarter points to wind up victorious.
"They stepped up and knocked down big shots at the end," Ike coach Daniel Wall said. "We didn't knock down shots and their freshman stepped up and hit shots. That's what it came down to."
Wall was right. His team had good looks in the waning moments, but just like this month's last-second loss to MacArthur, the Eagles couldn't get a bucket to drop when they needed one the most.
Ike grabbed two steals in the final minute, but missed four consecutive free throws trailing 37-35. The Eagles then forced a five-second call with 20 seconds left to get another opportunity.
But a three-pointer to win it didn't fall. Even then, a jump ball gave Ike one final shot with seven seconds left, but Ginger Reece (five points) missed the final look and Hartsfield sank two free throws on the other end to ice the game. Delicia Brown (five points) sank a three-pointer at the buzzer for Ike, who ended up one point short.
"At the end of the day, we left some free throws out there and we had two wide-open layups. We just gotta go finish. At the end of the day it's free throws."
Jaeda Reed — who led Ike with 18 points while controlling the paint and scoring multiple ways at the rim — missed four of those fourth quarter free throws. It was just one Achille's Heel for Ike.
The other was turnovers. The Eagles committed 25 turnovers — 16 of which came in the first half. The miscues proved to big to overcome as any one of those extra possessions would've proven pivotal late in the game.
"We have to keep our composure," Wall said. "Handle the basketball. Handle the pressure."