Purchase Line— Thursday night it was a tale of two halves for the Curwensville Golden Tide, who were able to come away with a victory in the consolation game of the Purchase Line Lions Club Holiday Tournament. The Tide used a mix of tough defense and solid passing and shooting to come away with a victory over Purchase Line 68-51.
Curwensville and Purchase Line traded baskets back and forth in the 1st quarter with Sam Gardner hitting a layup as the buzzer went off at the end of the period to bring the score at the end of the first to 15-14 Red Dragons. The second quarter was much of the same with each team trading baskets until Purchase Line was able to pull ahead with a pair of buckets before Curwensville called a time out with 2:01 remaining in the half. Ryan Gardner was able to knock down two threes in the final minute of the second quarter to put the Tide up 27-25 at the intermission.
In the second half David Kalgren took over by scoring 17 of his 19 points. Kalgren was able to show his importance to the Tide Thursday after missing Wednesday night’s game with food poisoning. “David does a little bit of everything for us. We missed a lot from his absence in yesterday’s game. He doesn’t just score points for us he does other things well too with his passing and defense. He does everything he can to help the team,” said Coach Wassil of his star guard.
The third quarter was much the same as the prior two with both teams going point for point. Purchase line was able to tie the game with 10 seconds to go in the third until Ryan Gardner hit his third three of the game from just behind half court. In the fourth quarter the Tide came out on fire going on a 14-0 run fueled by Kalgren, Gardner, and Derek Dixon and solid defense. Coach Wassil believes they should have been able to do that most of the game “We slowed down and relaxed and were able to get shots to fall. We knew they weren’t a strong team as far as handling the ball and we wanted to force them to use their weak hand. We just were a little over-aggressive in the first half and it allowed them to keep the strong hand dribbling, but once we forced them to their opposite hand we were able to force a bunch of turnovers.”
By the time the final buzzer sounded Curwensville had a 17 point lead and a victory. The Tide were able to get strong games from David Kalgren, Ryan Gardner, and Derek Dixon who scored 19, 15, and 13 points respectively. The Tide will be back in action January 2nd when the take on Dubois Central Catholic at home.
Notes: Kalgren and Dixon were named to the all tournament team along with Parker Herrington (Clearfield), Todd Hryn (Clearfield), Adam MacAfoos (Purchase Line), Tony Lester (Penns Manor), and Vince Gray (Penns Manor). Matt Shiner took home MVP honors. Curwensville has not won the tournament since 1995 when Coach Matt Wassil was tournament MVP.
Curwensville 68
R.Gardner 6 0-0 15, Palmer 1 1-2 3, Dixon 4 3-5 13, Johns 0 0-0 0, Kalgren 9 0-0 19, McCracken 0 0-0 0, McGary 3 1-2 7, S. Gardner 2 0-0 4, Greslick 2 3-4 7, Johnson 0 0-0 White 0 0-0 0
Purchase Line 51
Box Score unavailable
3 pointers: R. Gardner 3, Kalgren 1
Score by Quarters
Curwensville 14-13-18-23
Purcahse Line 15-10-17-9