The Tyrone Golden Eagles upped their record to 2-1 on the season after a 59-47 win over Huntingdon Tuesday night.
\nTyrone was lead by Tyler Mertiff and Brady Hoover, who combined for 50 points and made their presence felt early in the contest.
\nMertiff had a 26 point night, and started off the scoring only eight seconds into the game. Hoover was right behind him, scoring the next 5 points of the contest and putting the Eagles firmly ahead early. Hoover totaled 24 points, along with 15 rebounds.
\nThe Bearcats responded, however, going on a 10-0 run in the next three minutes of play. Bearcat junior Geoff Kozak hit back to back three pointers during the run, the second of which put Huntingdon ahead 9-7.
\n\u201cHe\u2019s tough,\u201d said head coach Mike Harris of the Bearcat standout. \u201cHe\u2019s a real tough player, he\u2019s quick, he makes everyone around him better.\u201d
\nKozak led the Bearcats with 20 points on the evening, and his two three pointers were the only shots made from behind the arc all night.
\nTyrone came right back when Ben Gummo stopped the Bearcat run with a field goal. Mertiff then scored 2, stole a Bearcat pass, and put the Eagles ahead with 2 minutes to play in the first period.
\nThings turned sour for the Eagles at this point, however, when sophomore starter Tad Chamberlain went down with an ankle injury.
\n\u201cTad\u2019s one of our key players,\u201d commented Harris. \u201cHe went down early. It created some match-up problems for us.\u201d
\nUp by one after the first period, Huntingdon widened their lead to by six throughout the first three minutes of the second period. Two minutes of offensive drought ensued for both squads, but Tyrone was able to break the silence and regain the lead when Hoover and Mertiff combined for an 8-2 run to end the half.
\nThe Golden Eagles came out of the locker room with a two point lead, but quickly pulled away from the Bearcats. Mertiff and Hoover ignited the Eagle offense, scoring all 15 of Tyrone\u2019s third period points. The rest of the Golden Eagles came together on defense, limiting the Bearcats to only 7 points in the period, allowing Tyrone to increase its lead to ten.
\n\u201cWe didn\u2019t play our game, we didn\u2019t play the game we wanted to play,\u201d stated Harris of his team\u2019s sloppy first half. \u201cAt halftime we just said we had to pick it up, we have to make a stand right now, and we did.\u201d
\nSenior point guard Mike Ashcroft, who swatted Huntingdon\u2019s first shot of the game, was also busy getting the ball to the Mertiff-Hoover tandem all night and throughout the period.
\nAshcroft and his fellow starters would leave the game early, as the Golden Eagles kept their third period push rolling into the final period of play. Mertiff got a generous roll on a lay-up in traffic, which started an 8-2 run throughout the opening three minutes of the fourth period. After Ashcroft found a cutting Nick Cushion for another two and freshman Leonard Wilson converted on a three point play, the Golden Eagle starters were relieved by the junior varsity.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s huge,\u201d commented Harris on the importance of getting the junior varsity experience. \u201cIt\u00e2\u2019s big. We need to get experience, we need to get guys playing.\u201d
\nThe Golden Eagle jayvees were able to post a 55-41 victory over the junior varsity Bearcats prior to the varsity game. Tyler Hoover led all scorers in the jayvee contest, tallying 18 points for the Golden Eagles. Teammate Shane Gherrity was second among all scorers with 15, and Barry Gummo had a 12 point outing for Tyrone. Huntingdon was led by Brandon Spayd, who also had 12. Tyrone\u2019s junior varsity squad upped their undefeated record to 3-0 on the year.
\n\u201cI thought overall this was a sloppy game, but it was a game we needed to win and we did,\u201d said Harris following the game. \u201cWe\u2019re not playing our best, but we won. We got it done.\u201d
\nBoth the junior varsity and varsity Eagles will face a tough Indian Valley squad this Friday at home.
\n\u201cWe have two days of practice, Indian Valley comes rolling in here on Friday,\u201d stated Harris on his team\u2019s upcoming game. \u201cIndian Valley\u2019s very strong, they\u2019re well coached, and it\u2019ll be a battle, but we\u2019re ready for the challenge.\u201d
\nTyrone 59 Huntingdon 47
\nScore by Quarter
\nTyrone 16 13 15 17 59
\nHuntingdon 17 10 7 13 47
\nIndividual Scoring
\nTyrone- Mertiff- 10 6-9 26, Hoover- 8 8-10 24, Gummo- 1 0-0 2, Ashcroft- 1-2 1, Cushion- 1 0-0 2, Wilson- 1 2-3 4
\nHuntingdon- Kozak- 5 4-5 20, Stidd- 1 0-1 2, Reed- 3 0-0 6, Waleski- 6 3-5 9, Barclay- 2-4 2, Border 1 0-0 2, Black 0-1, Kocik 1-1 1
\n3-Point Field goals Huntingdon 2 (Kozak 2)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Tyrone Golden Eagles upped their record to 2-1 on the season after a 59-47 win over Huntingdon Tuesday night. Tyrone was lead by Tyler Mertiff and Brady Hoover, who combined for 50 points and made their presence felt early in the contest. Mertiff had a 26 point night, and started off the scoring only […]<\/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-47679","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\/47679","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=47679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}