Galion never trails against Bucyrus

By JON KLEINKNECHT

Inquirer Sports Editor

sports@galioninquirer.com

BUCYRUS — The Galion Tigers led from start to fin­ish in notch­ing a 68–57 win against the Bucyrus Red­men on Fri­day night in the North Cen­tral Con­fer­ence boys’ bas­ket­ball opener for the Orange-and-Blue.

The Tigers — 2–1 over­all — sank a trio of 3-pointers in the first quar­ter and didn’t turn the ball over en route to a 17–8 lead. They then outscored the Red­men (1–4, 0–2) 21–16 in the sec­ond period to take a 14-point lead — 38–24 — into intermission.

A 12–12 stale­mate between the foes in the third stanza made the count 50–36 in favor of the Orange-and-Blue going into the final eight minutes.

The Red­men cut the gap to seven points with 40 sec­onds to go. But, the win­ners made 6-of-6 char­ity tosses in those final sec­onds — includ­ing 4-for-4 by Ridge Durbin — to seal the deal. The hosts turned the ball over on five con­sec­u­tive pos­ses­sions in a span of two min­utes mid­way through the frame, nix­ing any legit­i­mate chance they had of mount­ing a comeback.

Austin Chap­lin was the top scorer for the win­ners with 16 points, 10 com­ing in the sec­ond half. Eight other Tigers reached the scor­ing col­umn, too. Austin Prosser had 13 points, Durbin, 11; Spencer Frizzell, 7; Anto­nio Bur­ket, 6; Tony Kirk and Stephen Nog­gle, 5 apiece; Hous­ton Blair, 3; and Lucas Bohach, 2. All nine scored in the first half.

Michael Pur­cell popped in a game-high 18 points for the Red­men. Greg Patrick added 14 and Austin Williams, 12.

The Tigers con­verted 18 2-point and 5– 3-point shots along with going 17-for-30 at the char­ity stripe. Bucyrus gar­nered 10 deuces, 6 treys and was 19-for-26 on free­bies. Galion turned the ball over 9 times, Bucyrus 17.

In jayvee action, Cole Hol­lis knocked down a 20-foot 3-pointer with eight sec­onds to play lift­ing Bucyrus to a 39–38 win. It was the only time in the game the Red­men led. Gavin Rat­cliff led the junior Tigers in scor­ing with 15 points.

Both Galion squads are at Lex­ing­ton tonight.

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Dec 15 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.