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Josh Money’s Tuesday evening lacked just one thing to be a memorable one.

“I wanted that W,” Money said.

Polk County didn’t leave its gym with a win, but the Wolverines displayed in the second half the type of play, poise and determination that Money wants to see in a 67-66 loss to Pisgah.

Polk (1-2) trailed by 16 points at halftime, battled back to tie the game early in the fourth quarter and even led briefly in the final three minutes. The Wolverines also nearly forced overtime, with Gunnar Alm fouled on a 3-point heave at the buzzer with Pisgah leading by three.

Alm, who finished with a game-high 34 points, hit the first two free throws, but saw his third snare the rim and bounce away.

The result didn’t deter from the effort that got the Wolverines there.

“I challenged them at halftime to step up and kind of show me what they’re made of, and they responded in a huge way,” Money said. “If we play that game in the second half only, we win that game by 20 points.

“We outplayed them the entire second half. We built such a deficit in the first half that we had to kill ourselves to come back. But the way they responded, that kind of tells me what kind of team we have. And with that kind of heart and grit, we’re going to be in a lot of games later on in the year.”

Polk chewed up much of its halftime deficit in the third period, steadily chipping away at the Bears’ lead. An Alm layup at the 5:13 mark dropped the margin to single digits, and a pair of Jayce Edwards free throws and Dallas Littlejohn’s 3-pointer at the 1:28 mark pulled the Wolverines within two.

Aaron Jackson’s jumper from the lane made it a one-point game before Dominick Messer’s 3-pointer at the buzzer gave Pisgah a 47-43 edge heading into the final period.

With Khristian Littlejohn and Jackson helping Polk largely control the boards, the Wolverines finally tied the score at 50-50 on an Alm layup with 6:37 remaining. A Dallas Littlejohn 3-pointer with 2:47 remaining put Polk up 60-57, but Messer recorded back-to-back steals and fed Mason Putnam for layups on each to put Pisgah back in front with 1:57 to go.

Khristian Littlejohn scored off a Jackson pass to return the lead to Polk, but Messer drained a 3-pointer with 1:11 left to put the Bears up 64-62. The score stayed that way until 17.8 seconds remained, when Jackson sank two free throws to tie the game.

Pisgah looked to work the ball inside on its final possession of regulation, but with time winding down, flipped the ball outside to Messer, who drilled a long 3-pointer from the right wing with four seconds left.

Polk eventually faced an inbounds pass at midcourt with 0.8 seconds left, and consecutive Pisgah deflections of that inbounds attempt left the clock at 0.6. The Wolverines finally got the ball in to Alm near halfcourt, and he drew a foul as he caught and rushed a shot.

That it came down to a last-second possession was the biggest negative of the evening for Money.

“We missed nine or ten layups, bunnies, whatever you want to call them,” he said. “That’s 18 points we left out there.

“That’s stuff we can fix, but the heart, you can’t. You can’t coach that and you can’t find that in players. They have to have it already. So the fact they showed me that, I couldn’t be any prouder of them right now.”

Jackson finished with 12 points, all in the second half, with Dallas Littlejohn adding eight. Edwards had six, Khristian Littlejohn had four and Ja Gary and David Duffy each added one.

Polk County is back in action Wednesday, traveling to East Henderson.