Baylor's ability to score from outside has the Red Raiders squarely inside the Times Free Press Best of Preps basketball tournament championship game.
With half of their 18 field goals coming from behind the arc, the Red Raiders rallied and defeated Brainerd 48-46 in the second boys' semifinal Saturday at Chattanooga State.
Baylor (5-2) will take on Hamilton Heights in the boys' final Monday at 8:30 p.m. Brainerd (9-2) will play Central in the third-place game scheduled to start at 5:30. Action gets under way at 10 a.m. with the girls' seventh-place game.
The Panthers had to commit some fouls to get Baylor into the bonus late, but finally Spencer King went to the line for a bonus situation with 12.4 seconds to play but missed the front end. Brainerd rebounded and took the ball to the other end, but the Red Raiders' Austin Maize blocked a 3-point shot that went out of bounds with 3.2 seconds showing.
After both teams used their final timeouts, the Panthers lobbed the inbound pass, which Jesse Walker caught. But his shot from the middle of the lane hit the back of the rim and bounded off.
"I thought we did a good job against a very talented team," Baylor coach Austin Clark said. "Everybody didn't lose faith. We stayed down the whole time."
Clark was referring to down on the scoreboard, starting with the Panthers scoring the game's first seven points. They led by 24-15.
Baylor eventually caught them at 41 on Tyler Seaberg's 3-pointer from the right corner, then took its first lead a minute later on King's rebound and baseline jumper with 4:27 to play.
The Red Raiders broke a tie at 44 when Seaberg made one of two free throws with 2:30 remaining and King followed with a 3-point basket at the 1:34 mark.
Brainerd got back within two when Walker scored underneath with 1:08 to play after Dajuonta Ross saved the ball from going over the endline and threw it back to him. That set the stage for the finish.
King scored 15 points and Seaberg had 14 for Baylor, and both made three 3-pointers. Patrick Urey added 13 points and one 3.
"They saw Seaberg hitting out there, saw the ball going in and they started making shots," Clark said. "Our defense was tremendous, I thought, tonight. We battled hard off the glass."
Said Brainerd coach Levar Brown: "We stayed in a zone a long time in the second half because it was so effective in the first half. The second half we got lazy and did not rotate. I thought we got comfortable and stopped punching like we had been doing."
Brainerd was led by Walker's 15 points.
Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow him at twitter.com/KelleySmiddie.