Mount Gilead rides big scoring run to win over Scots

By ROB HAMILTON

It usu­ally takes more than one good run for a team to win a bas­ket­ball game, but when that good run lasts for 10 min­utes and con­sists of 26 straight points, it usu­ally doesn’t take much more.

That was what Mount Gilead did to High­land last Thurs­day in their 69–33 home win over the Scots.

High­land had come back from a first-quarter deficit to close within a 15–13 mar­gin with 6:40 to play in the half. Unfor­tu­nately, the Scots would not tally another point until the 4:35 mark of the third quarter.

Dur­ing that time, the Indi­ans rolled off 26 points in a row to boost their lead to a 41–13 mar­gin and High­land would not be able to recover.

Ethan and Xavier Har­ris got the run started. Both of them hit bas­kets and then fol­lowed by scor­ing bas­kets and free throws after Mount Gilead steals to boost the score to a 25–13 margin.

“Our kids are start­ing to play really good basketball,” said Mount Gilead coach Tom Cooper. “We told them to just trust each other and they’ll be all right. Our defense is really improved lately. The guys are get­ting really good at shar­ing the bas­ket­ball and look­ing for each other.”

Xavier Har­ris added two more buck­ets before the end of the half and Mike Chat­field hit a three-pointer and scored five points, as the Indi­ans boosted their lead to a 36–13 margin.

“Give them all the credit,” said High­land coach Mike Hoyng. “They hit shots early and put us on our heels. We didn’t exe­cute offen­sively and we didn’t play defense well, while they’re very con­fi­dent and play­ing at a high level.”

In the third quar­ter, Mount Gilead opened with a bas­ket by Ethan Har­ris and Chat­field added another three-pointer to give their team a 41–13 lead.

High­land broke the Indian run with back-to-back bas­kets, as both Byron Belcher and Kylo Minyo lit up the score­board, but the Indi­ans fin­ished the period on another good stretch of play.

After a three-pointer by Justin Deck­ling brought High­land within a 43–20 mar­gin, the Indi­ans went on a 12–3 run to fin­ish the third period. Chris God­frey scored four points dur­ing that time, with both Logan Chap­man and Nic Pomeroy added three.

Mount Gilead would outscore High­land 14–10 in the fourth period to fin­ish on top by 36 in the contest.

One thing mak­ing the game spe­cial for Cooper’s team was not just that it was Senior Night, but that two of his seniors hit a mile­stone for the program.

“We always try to make senior night about the seniors and these seniors are a spe­cial group,” he said. “Ethan Har­ris and Pay­ton Van­derkooi have been four-year var­sity play­ers and are now part of more wins than any other group with 53.”

The game started with Mount Gilead get­ting back-to-back three-pointers from Pomeroy and Van­derkooi to take a quick six-point lead. Another three-pointer by Van­derkooi, a three-ball from God­frey and a free throw and bas­ket by Xavier Har­ris staked the team to a 15–5 advantage.

How­ever, the Scots fin­ished the open­ing period with a bucket by Shawn Beltz and opened the sec­ond quar­ter with a flurry.

Cur­tis Belcher hit a shot and then Minyo fol­lowed with two straight buck­ets to bring the Scots within a two-point margin.

Mount Gilead would then go on their run, which changed the com­plex­ion of the contest.

After the game had ended, Hoyng noted that a big key for both teams sim­ply was confidence.

“We have improved and we are bet­ter than we were at the begin­ning of the year, but we’re still very frag­ile and it doesn’t take much for us to lose con­fi­dence,” he said. “They (MG) had the con­fi­dence and played a great game.”

Minyo led the Scots with nine points. Mount Gilead got 14 from Xavier Har­ris, 13 from Van­derkooi, 10 by Chat­field and nine from both God­frey and Ethan Harris.

Cooper noted that since Pleas­ant clinched the Blue Divi­sion title over his team, his play­ers are gear­ing up for what they hope to be a strong post­sea­son run.

“The guys were really focused tonight to get another win for tour­na­ment seed­ing,” he said. “Our guys were dis­ap­pointed they didn’t win the league and want to do some­thing special.”

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Feb 13 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.