Warriors bounce back

By Lenny Sementi
Tuscola dropped its first boys’ basketball game of the year last Friday but rebounded quickly with its second quality win of the week. Coach Justin Bozarth’s boys fell victim to a hot shooting Judah Christian squad, losing to the Tribe 75-49. The visitors from the north dropped 11 three pointers in and hit the offensive boards hard for second chance points.

The sting of the loss didn’t last long as the Warriors rebounded quickly with a 57-43 road win over a strong Tri-County team that had upended Judah earlier in the year, upping the record to 6-1 overall on the year.

Bozarth received some words of wisdom from long-time coach Tim Kohlbecker following the Friday night defeat.

“Good thing about basketball is usually you don’t have to wait long to get another crack at it, you get a shot to wash the bad taste out of your mouth tomorrow,” Kohlbecker said.

That’s just what happened, and following the Tri County win Bozarth quipped, “It’s nice to get back after it, we weren’t pleased with our defense last night, and we responded with our most complete performance of the week if not the year.”

Freshman Jalen Quinn was the man with the plan offensively for Bozarth ending the two-game swing with a team high 36 points. He accounted for 16 points in the win over the Titans and 20 points in the loss to Judah, just missing double-double’s in both contests, securing nine rebounds in each. Brayden VonLanken was strong as well tallying 28 points, a season high 22 of which in the victory.

“We need to find consistency moving forward,” stated the coach. “If we can accomplish that, we have the ability to be a good team night in and night out and a very tough team to beat on our best nights.”

The full story can be found in the Wednesday, Dec. 19 edition of The Tuscola Journal.