Cardinals escape with a win

By Lenny Sementi
For the third straight game the Warriors weren’t able to hold on to a lead in the third quarter falling to a good Warrensburg squad by six points 63-59. The visiting Cardinals took advantage of a Warrior scoring drought in the second quarter to stay in the game and, simply, outscore the home team down the stretch. The two teams combined for 74 points in an entertaining second half.

“The game was close throughout; we put ourselves in a few holes but dug ourselves back out,” commented Bozarth. “We fought our way back and had really good looks at the basket late, but the shots didn’t go down for us tonight.”

Jalen Quinn hit a three in the first and three in the game on his way to a team high 23 points. Quinn took full advantage of the attention directed toward Brayden VonLanken in the post to step outside the arc, giving the Warriors a 13-10 lead with 1:25 left on the clock in the first. The big man added 14 points to the mix after some damage down low with a pair of early buckets then hit one more to cap of the period making it 15-12 Warriors heading to the second.

A&M utilized a 13-2 run to build a double-digit lead, but an offensive put back by Cole Cunningham and late jumper from Cade Kresin coupled with baskets from Quinn and VonLanken got the Warriors right back in it heading to the break behind by just two points 25-23. Quinn hit threes on back-to-back possessions in the third to put the Warriors in front only to see the Raiders crank out a 10-point run that ultimately proved to be too much to overcome. A&M ended the third period up by five and kept it there throughout the final eight minutes of the contest.

Will Little hit a three in the final stanza as did Cunningham, but it was not enough as the Cardinals’ Jarrius Ingram closed the door with a 6 for 9 effort at the line. Ingram was held in check in the first half scoring just two points but exploded in the second half scoring 28 points by continually finding his way to the basket.

“We held Ingram in check early, but, simply put, Ingram took over the game for them in second half,” Bozarth said.

The full story can be found in the Wednesday, Jan. 23 edition of The Tuscola Journal.