Monday, November 26, 2012

Tiger Boys Dig Hole, Fall to Stanberry

Worth County’s boys dug their way into a 20-4 hole against Stanberry and could not climb out of it, falling 56-41 to the Bulldogs in opening round action of the Albany tournament. Stanberry had just come off of playing for the state championship, but it was the Tigers who looked like they had only had three days  of practice as Stanberry turned the first period into a layup drill, prompting a mass exodus of fans from the building. That followed some unforced errors near the end of the period.
“We need to work on a lot of things to stop that from happening again,” said Coach Chris Healy. “We were not patient enough on offense and 90% of their points in the period were on layups.”
Worth County switched to a run and jump press to start the second quarter and it bothered Stanberry as the Tigers were able to work their way back into the game. Dylan Kinsella, who had not played since his freshman year due to injuries, showed that he was still a force underneath the basket. Going up against a much taller Stanberry squad, he was able to get a career high 14 points on the evening. It was a prayer thrown up by Cole Parman at the start of the second quarter and a 3-point play that seemed to wake the Tigers out of their first quarter funk. Dylan got going after he stripped a Stanberry player who had just gotten a rebound and drew contact after a fake, hitting both free throws to make it 22-10. Brevyn Ross followed with a steal; he was all over the court for the Tigers. He got nine points and several steals off the press as well as one time where he jumped into nearly the top row of the seats trying to save a ball from going out of bounds. Truman Moore had a putback, his first career points, during the stretch as well.
Dylan Kinsella blew by a defender like a guard and drew a foul late in the half to make it 28-24, but hurt his ankle in the process. Stanberry switched to a zone in the second half that Worth County could not solve as they only had 17 points in the frame. “We’re a young team with only one player back and it will take us a while to adjust to what the other team is doing,” said Healy.
With Dylan out for large stretches of the second half, Worth County could not close off the inside game of Stanberry and their 6’6” post player as the lead grew to as much as 47-30 right before the third quarter.
Dylan tried to come back at the 3:46 mark of the third frame, but he picked up his fifth foul early in the fourth quarter and the Tigers could not find enough scoring to compensate. Freshman Chris Alarcon hit an NBA 3-pointer for one of the few highlights of the fourth quarter. Jared Simmons scored his first career points as a Tiger in that frame as Coach Chris Healy emptied his bench in a vain effort to get some kind of offensive spark against Stanberry.
Dylan Kinsella led the Tigers in scoring with 14, followed by Brevyn Ross with 9. Bryce Ross and Grant Parman each had 4. Cole Parman had 3, along with Chris Alarcon. Jared Simmons and Truman Moore had 2.
The focus of the team will be to be more patient on offense and do a better job closing off the inside as they continue play this week.

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