The
National Trail Blazers survived a hot second
quarter run by the Bradford Railroaders
to earn their third win in the Cross County
Conference. The ‘Roaders came out steaming
in the first half and shot 7 for 11 from the
field in the second quarter to take a 7 point
lead into the break, but couldn’t sustain
the momentum into the second half. The Blazers
went on to earn a six point victory, 57 – 51.
Jason
Wood is into his 2nd year as the head coach
at Bradford and the difference between
this year’s team from those in the recent
past is noticeably different.
The biggest difference is the effort on defense
and rebounding. The 2-3 zone employed against
the Blazers tonight was effective, especially
in the first half. The Bradford players hustled
and made a conscious effort to box out. And
that is not always the easiest task to accomplish
when playing a zone defense.
The bright spot for Bradford is that they
are young and they have players with basketball
sense who want to play basketball. The Roaders
started 4 sophomores and a senior and the sophomores
made a game out of it in the first half.
Sophomores
Phillip Jones and Doug Canaan busted 3 treys
in the first quarter to help Bradford
keep pace with the Blazers. Tyler Rhodus had
7 of his 9 points to lead the charge for National
Trail in the first quarter and the Blazers
took 15 – 11 lead.
In
the second quarter Jones nailed his 3rd trey
of the first half to lead an 11 – 2
run for the Roaders that put them up 5, 17 – 22.
Trail is able to stop the bleeding with some
help off the bench as Zack Ebersole scored
5 points that helped the Blazers climb within
one point with just under 3 minutes in the
half.
Two
more sophomores would bookend a 9 – 3
point run for the ‘Roaders. Logan Looker
started the run with a trey and Cody Shafer
would end it with a trey at the buzzer that
gave Bradford a 26 – 33 lead going into
the locker room.
The thoughts of ending the conference losing
drought (99-00 season was last Roader conference
win) started to erode in the third quarter.
National Trail started the second half hitting
their first 3 shots to tie the game at 33.
As hot as the Roaders were in the first half
shooting, the second half would turn the rims
into ice and they produced 4 points in the
3rd quarter.
Malachi
Jones and Ben Beck scored 5 and 4 points
that led a 16 point performance in the
3rd quarter for the Blazers. Trail led by 5,
42 – 37 going into the final quarter.
Free
throw shooting would be the Achilles’ heal
in the 4th quarter for Bradford as they shot
9 – 20. The Blazers were able to build
their lead as high as 11 points in the quarter
and were able to hold on down the stretch to
win, 57 - 51.
“In the first half we were 11 for 22
from the field and in the second half we were
3 for 22 and it is just hard to win when we
do that” noted Coach Wood in his post
game comments. “That has happened to
us all year where we go through spells where
we just can’t score, we don’t make
shots.”
“We had a chance to get back into the
game with the clock stopped if we just hit
some free throws down the stretch” noted
Woods.
“The kids played hard and I’m
proud of their effort. I thought they executed
well and we got the shots that we needed, but
we just didn’t make them in the second
half.” “Trail made shots in the
second half and we didn’t and that is
the difference in the game.”
Some straight talk is what National Trail
needed from their Coach Mike Harrison at half
time.
“One of things about this team over
the last couple years is that they just haven’t
handled adversity well. You saw that in the
first half with Bradford playing well and shooting
the ball. Instead of rising up to meet the
challenge, we just crumbled. That was basically
the half time talk, if you’re going to
beat anybody you have to be able to withstand
some adversity.”
“I was happy with my kid’s composure
in the 3rd quarter and they were able to get
some shots to go down which helped us pick
things up on the other end of the floor” continued
Harrison. “We were patient enough offensively
starting half out that we were able to get
the ball to Ben inside the paint and got some
easy baskets.”
“I’m happy with kids with how
hard they play. There are always going to be
things that we need to get better at and things
which I think we should be getting better at
quicker. But the kids’ effort is there,
they want to get better and they love basketball.
They’re good kids and I’m enjoying
coaching them.”
Scoring by quarters
National
Trail…15…26…42…57
Bradford………11…33…37…51
National Trail
Jones – 9
Catron – 6
Kimberlin – 4
Abner – 5
Rhodus – 9
Ebersole – 5
Beck – 12
Coggin – 6
Vance – 1
Bradford
Looker – 13
Canaan – 8
Sanderson – 4
Jones – 12
Phillips – 6
Shafer – 6
Wood – 2
3 Point Goals
National Trail 2 (Jones, Abner)
Bradford 5 (Jones 3, Looker, Shafer)
