Orange-and-Blue win 2 in a row

By JON KLEINKNECHT

Inquirer Sports Editor

sports@galioninquirer.com

Maybe they’ve turned the corner.

The Galion Tigers upset the vis­it­ing River Val­ley Vikings 56–53 Tues­day night in a non-conference boys’ var­sity hoops battle.

The win is the sec­ond in a row for the Orange-and-Blue who are 6–9. The Divi­sion II Vikings descend to 11–5.

“I’m pleased. I’ll take it,

stated a smil­ing Ed Rich, head coach of the Tigers. “It was a good win over a big­ger school.”

River Val­ley scored the first five points of the sec­ond quar­ter to go up 17–10. The final five min­utes of the frame the Orange-and-Blue dom­i­nated, outscor­ing the vis­i­tors 17–2 with Ridge Durbin tal­ly­ing 8 of the points via a cou­ple of NBA-range 3-pointers and a 15-foot jumper.

The Vikings took the third stanza 14–11, trim­ming Galion’s advan­tage to five points — 38–33 — enter­ing the last eight minutes.

Durbin net­ted 11 tal­lies in the final quar­ter — includ­ing back-to-back 3-pointers. The locals made 7-of-9 free throws in the last 1:15 to stave off the Vikings.

“We’ve been hit­ting our free throws,” said Rich. Going into the last two games, the Tigers were the worst char­ity tosses shoot­ing team in the North Cen­tral Con­fer­ence at 50 per­cent. Against River Val­ley they were 16-for-24. In an over­time tri­umph at Riverdale last Sat­ur­day, they made 17-of-25.

Galion was 17-for-31 from the floor on Tues­day, includ­ing 6-for-12 from behind the arc. The vis­i­tors attempted 20 more shots, mak­ing 20 2-pointers and a quar­tet of treys.

The taller, big­ger Vikings out-rebounded the hosts 35–19. The Orange-and-Blue com­mit­ted a dozen turnovers and River Val­ley, 11.

Durbin was the game’s top scorer with 21 points after being shutout the first 11:23. Austin Chap­lin added 10 points, Tony Kirk, 8; Austin Prosser, 7; to go with 5 each from Lucas Bohach and Stephen Noggle.

Kyle Mathey’s 20 mark­ers led the visitors.

Galion’s junior var­sity squad out-scored a River Val­ley team that has lost just twice this win­ter by a 40–28 count. Gavin Rat­cliff tick­led the twine for 13 points and Jor­dan Valen­tine added 11 for the winners.

At Mount Blan­chard last Sat­ur­day, Austin Chap­lin hit a reverse layup at the buzzer in over­time pro­pelling the Orange-and-Blue to a thrilling 64–63 tri­umph over host Riverdale (3–10).

Riverdale had a 63–62 lead with 7.8 sec­onds remain­ing in over­time. A Fal­con missed two free throws, with Galion’s Tony Kirk grab­bing a rebound on the sec­ond miss. Upcourt, Spencer Frizzell made a fine pass to Chap­lin who hit the game-winner.

“We were down seven points with a lit­tle more than a minute to go (in reg­u­la­tion),” said Galion head coach Ed Rich. “Austin Prosser hit some free throws for us. I hope this is a turn­ing point for us. It wasn’t just a win, it was an emo­tional win.”

Galion’s pres­sure defense caused the hosts prob­lems from the begin­ning. The Tigers jumped out to a quick 9–0 lead and had a 21–13 advan­tage going into the sec­ond quar­ter. Riverdale took the sec­ond frame 14–9, trim­ming the Tigers’ lead to just three points — 30–27 — at halftime.

The foes played to a 12–12 stale­mate in the third stanza, and Riverdale claimed the fourth period 18–15 to push the game into OT.

Prosser had a great game. Not only did he score a team-high 19 points, the senior also racked up 8 steals, snagged 6 rebounds and dealt out 6 assists.

Also for the win­ners, Chap­lin net­ted 17 points, Ridge Durbin and Kirk, 9 apiece; Mar­cus Blair, 4; Frizzell, 3; Lucas Bohach, 2; and Stephen Nog­gle, 1. Kirk added 7 rebounds.

Lee Hol­d­er­man popped in a game-high 22 points for the Falcons.

Team sta­tis­tics showed Galion going 22-for-51 from the field (43 per­cent), 17-for-25 on foul shots (68 per­cent), haul­ing in 29 rebounds and turn­ing the ball over 10 times. Riverdale was 17-for-38 on action shots (45 per­cent), 21-of-30 on free­bies (70 per­cent), snared 31 missed shots and coughed the ball up 20 times.

The junior var­sity Tigers scored a 50–37 vic­tory. Fresh­man Colton Moore tal­lied a game-high 17 points for the victors.

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Jan 29 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.