Curwensville— In a game where more muggings occurred in one night than in an entire year in New York City, Clearfield was able to come out victorious. The Bisons built an 11 point lead by the end of the first quarter, and were able to keep the lead for the entire game and come out on top 49-48. Curwensville was able to use the referee’s loose calls to their advantage and swarm Bison ball handlers and cause turnovers late in the game on route to making a comeback that ultimately fell short.
Curwensville started to chip away late in the game getting some nice baskets from Sam Gardner, David Kalgren, and Joey Palmer. Possibly the biggest shot of the night for the Golden Tide came from Kalgren, who was able to bank in an 18 foot jumper with 1:45 left in the game to close the Bison lead to one. That shot gave him a game high 21 points. The Bisons just proved to be too much for the Tide to handle, causing a turnover on an inbound pass with seconds to go in the game. Once Clearfield got the ball back Parker Herrington threw a down court lob to Jarrin Campman to run out the clock and give Clearfield the victory.
Clearfield was somewhat disappointed with the collapse of their lead, but Coach Campman attributes a lot of that to the good defensive play of Curwensville, “I can’t say we blew our lead, Curwensville was by far the quickest team we’ve played yet. We just couldn’t convert well against them on the offense end. We would get caught in double teams off of inbounds and turn the ball over. When Curwensville got behind they had no inhibitions and were able to launch shots they normally wouldn’t take, and tonight they made the tough shots to get back in it. To their credit they were able to make the plays to stay in it.”
Clearfield was able to get good production once again from their top two guards Campman and Herrington. Campman led Clearfield scorers with 10 points, and Herrington was able to handle the rough defensive play of the Golden Tide and not turn the ball over too much. “I thought they did a nice job (Campman, and Herrington) taking care of the ball with Curwensville grinding on them. They didn’t turn the ball over much,” said Campman on the play of his guards.
The rest of the Bisons were able to control the boards very well, but some of their problems came off of those rebounds. Many times the Bisons had second chance opportunities only to turn the ball over. “Our big guys struggled a little tonight; they turned the ball over quite a bit. They had a lot of rebounds that ended up being either missed shots or turnovers, and that hurts. But there is a reason why Drew Hipps and Matt Shiner start, when you have those guys out of the game that’s your best shooter and one of your best overall players off the court” commented Campman on the play of his team and the loss of Shiner and Hipps to foul trouble.
When asked if perhaps playing back to back games caused poor second half production, Coach Campman had this to say, “They played last night too, so you cant use that as an excuse. Tonight was a great win though, because we were able to pick up back to back road wins in a hostile environment.
Clearfield comes back home to Arthur J. Weiss Gymnasium to take on District 9 league opponent Brookville on Friday night. “We don’t know much about them, we played them in the summer, but they have a different coach now. We have a great advantage though because they have to come to our place. It’s an important game because we want to win as many league games as possible and get into the state playoffs.
Varsity tip-off is set for 7:00 against the Raiders Friday night.
Clearfield 49
Herrington 2 3-4 7, Ryan 1 0-0 2, Greenland 0 0-0 0, Fox 1 0-0 2, Campman 4 0-1 10, Shiner 3 2-3 10, Hryn 4 2-3 10, Kerr 0 1-2 1, Hipps 3 1-1 7
Curwensville 48
McGary 0 1-2 1, R. Gardner 1 0-0 2, Palmer 2 1-5 5, Dixon 4 0-1 8, Kalgren 5 10-12 21, S.Gardner 4 2-2 11
Score by Quarters
Clearfield 21-11-7-10
Curwensville 10-12-7-19