Lewistown outhustled and outworked Tyrone on the glass to score a 71-52 victory over Tyrone last night.
\nThe Golden Eagles hung with the Panthers for a quarter and a half, actually leading by three after a quarter and holding their last lead at 25-24 with four minutes remaining in the first half, but all went downhill from there.
\nAfter scoring six first quarter points, Tyrone senior guard Tyler Mertiff was held scoreless in the second quarter and only scored four more the rest of the evening, finishing with 10 points.
\n\u201cSeeing the box scores and seeing them play a couple times, we saw that he makes them tick,\u201d said Lewistown coach Aaron Gingrich. \u201cThe better he plays, the more confidence the team gets and in turn they follow suit. We tried some different things to limit his looks and limit his easy opportunities and our guys executed that game plan pretty well throughout the game.\u201d
\nGingrich mixed up his defenses on Mertiff.
\n\u201cI\u2019m not going to give away all my secrets, but we had different people guarding Mertiff,\u201d said Gingrich. \u201cWe threw a bunch of different looks at them, which I think worked for the most part, holding a great player like him to just 10 points. It was a very good job on our guys part. Mertiff is one of the better players in Central Pennsylvania and that is a testament to our kids carrying out a game plan.\u201d
\n\u201cThey shut Tyler down,\u201d said Tyrone coach Mike Harris. \u201cThey didn\u2019t want the ball in Tyler\u2019s hands and nobody else stepped up. We\u2019ve got to have other guys step up. Tyler can\u2019t score 75 a game. Other guys have to step up and start scoring. They have to look for their shot and take good shots that are in their range.\u201d
\nSenior point guard Mike Ashcroft stepped up his game in the first half scoring 10 points in the first 12 minutes of the contest.
\nThe Panthers used a 16-10 advantage in the second quarter to jump out to a three point halftime lead at 32-29. For the Eagles, being down by only three at the intermission was a blessing as Lewistown missed seven first half shots from within three feet.
\n\u201cIt could have been a lot worse than it was,\u201d said Harris. \u201cThey missed a lot of layups and we didn\u2019t box anybody out. They had to have been in double digits in offensive rebounds.\u201d
\nThe Golden Eagles ran into foul trouble in the first half. Junior center Brady Hoover picked up his second foul with 1:38 remaining in the first quarter and sat the remainder of the first half and Ashcroft picked up his third personal with 2:30 remaining in the first half.
\n\u201cA lot of times our guys get called for fouls because they aren\u2019t in the right position,\u201d said Harris. \u201cThey reach in when they are trying to make something happen and there is no need to. Then it goes down the tubes. We have to do a better job disciplining ourselves in our defense and do the little things like box out and make our foul shots. We were at 50 percent for the night and five of those misses were the front end of one and ones.\u201d
\nThe Panthers increased their lead from three points at the half to seven points. During the first three minutes of the third quarter, Lewistown pulled down seven offensive rebounds. In an attempt to spark his team, Harris pulled his starters and put in the junior varsity players. When the starters went to the bench, the Lewistown lead was seven, after a 12-2 run, the Panthers held an 18 point lead at 53-35 when the starters returned.
\n\u201cWe felt in the first half we were on the edge of getting a little lead,\u201d said Gingrich. \u201cWe were shooting ourselves in the foot many times. There weren\u2019t many turnovers, but a lot of our turnovers led to their scores or missed easy shots led to their scores which kept them in the game. I thought in the third quarter, not only did we continue the good defense, but we finished plays off on both ends of the court, which in turn led to that run.\u201d
\nAfter being outscored by Lewistown 24-8 in the third quarter, Tyrone played even with the Panthers in the fourth, but fell by 19 points, 71-52.
\n\u201cWe didn\u2019t match their intensity in the second half,\u201d said Harris. \u201cWe have to get back to work tomorrow and get it done.\u201d
\nBrady Hoover led the Golden Eagles charge with 18 points, Ashcroft finished with 12 and Mertiff ended with 10. Lewistown was paced by senior Dan Moore and freshman Matt Hilton who had 17 points each.
\nTyrone falls to 3-3 overall and 3-2 in the Mountain League. The Golden Eagles travel to Hollidaysburg for tournament action that starts Friday afternoon at 4 p.m. when they face Kiski Area.
\n\u201cWe have to look at ourselves in the mirror and ask what can we do to make this team better,\u201d said Harris. \u201cThat goes for the coaches and the team. We have to come together and say to ourselves what can we do better to make this team better. That is what we have to do. Nobody is going to feel sorry for Tyrone.\u201d
\nSenior Dan Grazier saw his first action of the season after recovering from his ankle injury during football season and sophomore Tad Chamberlain returned to the floor following his ankle injury suffered against Huntingdon.
\n\u201cIt was good to get them back,\u201d said Harris. \u201cWe\u2019re going to need them. It is a long season. It was good to get them a decent amount of minutes. It just wasn\u2019t our night. Lewistown is a very good team, they are very well coached they were ready for us and we didn\u2019t rise to the challenge.
\nJayvees stay unbeaten
\nThe Tyrone junior varsity improved to 6-0 on the season with a 42-41 victory over Lewistown.
\nAdam Hoover led the way with 19 points and Leonard Wilson added seven.
\nNate Powell led the Panthers charge with 15.
\nVarsity
\nLewistown 71, Tyrone 52
\nScore by quarters
\nTyrone – \t\t19 10 8 15 – 52
\nLewistown – \t16 16 24 15 – 71
\nIndividual scoring
\nTyrone: Mertiff 5 0-2 10, B. Hoover 6 6-9 18, Be. Gummo 1 2-3 44, Ashcroft 5 0-0 12, Chamberlain 0 0-2 0, Domenick 0 0-0 0, Grazier 0 0-3 0, A. Hoover 1 0-0 2, Wilson 1 2-2 4, Crabtree 0 0-0 0, Gherrity 1 0-0 2, Ba. Gummo 0 0-0 0. Totals: 20 10-21 52.
\nLewistown: Baker 0 0-1 0, Hartsock 5 0-0 10, Moore 7 3-6 17, Stewert 7 1-2 15, O\u2019Donnell 4 0-0 8, Hilton 6 2-3 17, Heider 1 2-2 4, Powell 0 0-0 0, Hook 0 0-0 0, Tressler 0 0-0 0, Baker 0 0-0 0, Hartman 0 0-0 0. Totals: 30 8-14 71.
\n3pt. FG: FG: Tyrone 2 (Ashcroft 2); Lewistown 3 (Hilton 3).
\nJunior Varsity
\nTyrone 42, Lewistown 41
\nScore by quarters
\nTyrone – \t\t10 8 17 7 – 42
\nLewistown – \t10 12 7 12 -41
\nIndividual statistics
\nTyrone – Hoover 9 1-1 19, Hershberger 1 0-0 2, Crabtree 1 2-4 4, Wilson 3 1-1 7, Ba. Gummo 2 0-0 4, Gherrity 2 0-2 4, Bayer 1 0-0 2. Totals: 19 4-8 42.
\nLewistown – Baker 2 2-2 6, Hilton 0 0-0 0, Goss 0 0-0 0, Powell 7 0-0 15, Hook 2 2-4 6, Zimmerman 2 0-0 6, Tressler 2 0-0 4, Kosmann 2 0-0 4. Totals: 17 4-6 41.
\n3pt. FG: Lewistown 3 (Zimmerman 2, Powell 1).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lewistown outhustled and outworked Tyrone on the glass to score a 71-52 victory over Tyrone last night. The Golden Eagles hung with the Panthers for a quarter and a half, actually leading by three after a quarter and holding their last lead at 25-24 with four minutes remaining in the first half, but all went […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}