Near misses haunt Warriors, boys rebound for victory

By Lenny Sementi
Entering the third week of the season Tuscola’s boys’ basketball team has been ahead or tied late in the third quarter only to watch victories slip away.

It happened twice more last week as the Warriors fell twice losing to Heritage on Tuesday the 12th 47-33 and Judah Christian a few nights later in a thrilling 66-63 barnburner on Friday. The Warriors were tied with less than a minute to go in the third against Heritage and rallied from 14 down at the break to within one of the lead with under two minutes to go in the game at Judah.

“Friday we played the best half that we’ve played all season long,” stated coach Justin Bozarth. “Heading into the game, we made a decision that we were going to play more guys. In all our previous games we’ve been tied or within one late in the game and felt like we ran out of gas. Some of that can be contributed to us still searching for our basketball legs, and we felt like the rotation helped us in the second half.”

Tuesday, Dec. 12
Heritage 47; Tuscola 33
Heritage came to play opening the game with a 7-0 run in the first four minutes of the game before Tyler Meinhold broke the ice for the Warriors with a three. The senior hit three of them in the game while grabbing three rebounds and swiping two steals. Heritage fired back with a three of their own then hit another late in the frame to take a 13-6 lead before Dalton Hoel found Braydon VonLanken under the hoop at the buzzer cutting it to five, 13-8 heading to the second.

Luke Sluder and Will Little each hit a jumper early in the next frame, and Cade Kresin put back an offensive rebound helping Tuscola end the first half with a 9-2 run climbing to within two of the lead at the break, 21-19. The Warriors gave up an early three then slammed the door on the Hawks early in the third running off six straight points to tie the game at 25.

The full story can be found in the Wednesday, Dec. 20 edition of The Tuscola Journal.