The Effingham Hearts led almost the entire game, but the Mattoon Green Wave rallied in the fourth quarter to post a 44-43 victory at home Thursday night.

EHS led 14-10 after the first eight minutes, 22-17 at halftime and 34-29 heading into the fourth period.

But Mattoon then went on a 15-9 scoring surge to pull out the one-point victory.

“We played a tough game,” said EHS coach Obie Farmer. “Our kids did well executing the game plan. We fed our post player and made Mattoon make adjustments. But we became too focused on forcing the ball inside and turned the ball over some, plus we didn’t rebound well.”

Garrett Wolfe led the Effingham scoring attack with a game-high 17 points and Logan Heil also cracked double figures with 12.

The Hearts dipped to 10-16 overall and our now 4-4 in the Apollo Conference. The Hearts will travel to Mahomet-Seymour on Saturday.