Tyrone battled it out with Lewistown on Monday night for three solid quarters, even cutting the Panthers’ lead to seven points with about seven minutes left. Then, Lewistown exploded to outscore the Golden Eagles 22-5 over the last quarter to carve out a 78-50 victory at Lewistown. Although the end result sounds like a route, the game was much closer than it seemed by the final score.
In the key final eight minutes, Lewistown’s Joe Stewart, the Panthers’ best offensive player scored 10 points to turn the game around, after being held to just 14 over the first three quarters.
The Eagles had been according to coach Mike Harris fundamentally sound to that point.
“Then we made some mistakes, missed some shots,” explained Harris. “You can’t do that against a team like Lewistown. They made us pay.”
The two squads had battled back and forth over the first three quarters with the Panthers fashioning scoring margins in the first and third periods and the Eagles battling the hosts even in the second quarter. Lewistown was able to take a 22-17 lead with a hot hand in the first quarter and maintained the five-point lead at the half 37-32 after a 15-15 second quarter in which neither school was able to get an advantage.
“Our problem all year, has been needing to play a solid 32 minutes in each game,” said Harris. “We haven’t been able to put it together for an entire game. In last night’s game, the score doesn’t indicate how close the game was for three quarters.”
Nick Cushion pumped in 17 points, including five three-pointers to lead Tyrone and Leonard Wilson continued his hot streak with 13 points, hitting nine of 11 from the foul line.
Joe Stewart led Lewistown with a game-high 24 points and Chris Tressler contributed 17 points.
“Tyrone has never played well at Lewistown,” said Harris. “We don’t play well after the long trip. The kids haven’t quit on us. They keep working hard and improving. Leonard Wilson has really elevated his performance over the past five games. Sometimes the toughest thing for young players to learn is to play hard every game for 32 minutes without taking any off. We are not asking our kids to do anything they are not capable of doing. We have to get them to the point where their teammates can trust them to do the same complete job every single game. Younger teams can get down on their game. We have been teaching them it is important for them to be there for their team. We aren’t giving up. We have three more games left and we want to maintain good attitudes and continue to work hard. We want to get something going for our three seniors (Nick Cushion, Adam Hoover, Shane Gherrity) to finish strong and for the underclassmen to find some momentum for next year.”
Lewistown 78 Tyrone 50
TYRONE – Crabtree 2 0-1 4, Wilson 2 9-11 13, Cushion 6 0-0 17, Hershberger 1 1-2 3, Chamberlain 2 0-0 4, Clark 1 0-0 3, Corle 1 0-0 2, Hoover 1 2-2 4, Haney 0 0-0 0, Gherrity 0 0-0 0, Kost 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 16 12-16 50
LEWISTOWN – Hilton 3 1-3 9, Stewart 8 8-10 24, Powell 1 0-0 2, Hook 2 1-2 5, Baker 3 0-0 7, Tressler 7 2-4 17, Heider 2 0-0 4, Kosman 2 0-0 4. TOTALS 29 13-21 78.
Score by Quarters
Tyrone 17 15 13 5 – 50
Lewistown 22 15 17 22 – 78
Three point goals: Tyrone 6 (Cushion 5, Clark 1).
Lewistown 4 (Hilton 2, Baker 1, Tressler 1).
