Friday, February 6, 2015

Tiger Boys Ride Size Advantage to Victory Over Bobcats

Worth County's boys rode their size advantage to their 5th victory of the season, 52-32 over East Harrison. They have three players between 6'4" and 6'5" while East Harrison had only one player on its roster listed at 6'1", which turned into a big size advantage for Worth County. "We shot the ball much better than we did against Maysville," said Coach Bryce Schafer. Worth County shot 50% from the field and 57% from behind the arc, which he said was a product of much better ball movement than they had in the past. The Tigers still have work to do on defense if they are to get some more wins; even the best teams cannot count on that sort of shooting every single night. But they will take them however they can get them.

As has been the case for many of Worth County's games, Josh Warner scored 5 points right off the bat and that opened everything else. His relentless attacking of the rim forced the defense to focus on him and that opened up Cade Allee to score 7 points in the quarter. Chris Alarcon added 5 for Worth County. East Harrison tried to counter with Brian Reno getting to the rim, but after Worth County closed that off, they could not get anything else going consistently. Worth County took a 17-5 lead after one quarter; that was capped off when Drake Kinsella pushed it up the floor himself after grabbing a defensive board and getting it to Alarcon for the finish. It was something that the coaches have tried to get their players to do all year instead of hesitating after getting a defensive board trying to find an outlet, and they finally started doing it in Thursday's win.

Kinsella was not done as he scored two 3-pointers in the second quarter as the Tigers pulled away to a 28-10 halftime lead in a low-scoring frame. Cade Allee added 3 and Mason Hawk 2.

East Harrison tried to change the tempo of the game and press Worth County, but Worth County continued to pull away to a 43-18 lead after three. Josh Warner scored four in the period, including two in which he got loose against the Bobcat press. Cade Allee, who had been pushed to improve his defense all year, did so and added a block in the period. He had two in the quarter; he also had two against Albany. Ryan McClellan took a charge on defense in the third and took another in the fourth, following in the steps of his older brothers Zack and Alex Harmening, who were both known for energy, effort, and taking charges on defense.

Ryan McClellan added a 3-pointer on the offensive end and Wayde Parman came off the bench to add a free throw and an assist in the fourth period. Jared Simmons and Cade Allee had 2 each and Mason Hawk 1 in the frame.

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