Johnsonburg – A six game losing streak is over for the Curwensville boys basketball team as they knocked off Johnsonburg Tuesday night 72-57.
The win can be attributed to many factors: Forty seven second half points; Ben Johnson, Tide senior, with a career high 19 points; Curwensville hitting on 23 of 33 free throws, 15 of 21 in the fourth quarter alone.
All this while Curwensville seniors Sam Gardner and Jed Greslick scored 20 and 12 points respectively pushing the Tide to their third win of the 2009-10 season.
Curwensville lived at the free throw line and Tide coach Matt Wassil explained why, “Our game is to attack the rim because we know we can get to the line and tonight it really helped us to the win.”
Johnsonburg, now 6-4, was coming off a twelve point loss to Bradford on Monday night and appeared to be out of rhythm in the first quarter as the Tide jumped out to a 15-7 margin. At one point Curwensville was up 11-3 with two minutes to go in the first period before the Rams started to click.
In the second frame the Rams put together their best stretch of the contest by outscoring their visitors 21-10 to take a 28-25 lead into the halftime break. Johnsonburg took it’s first lead of the game at the two minute mark of the second, 20-18.
Wassil commented about the Rams, “We knew that Johnsonburg was a really good team with quality team balance. We also had a week to prepare for this game and that was a big plus for us.”
Johnson put up seven points for the Golden Tide in the third stanza that saw Curwensville surge back in front 48-41 after the third with the free throws yet to come. It was 31-31 at the 5:54 mark of the third before Curwensville started it’s victorious march.
Curwensville iced the game in the fourth period by going to the charity stripe 21 times and making 15 of those thanks in part to Gardner making 7 of 8 in the final eight minutes as the Tide won their third game against six losses.
Aaron Patrick led the Rams with 20 points of his own and was helped out by fellow senior Coty Gorske who pumped in 11.
Breaking the six game losing streak gave Wassil some hope, “I hope the kids get some confidence back with this road win. Perhaps this will finally push us over the hump.”
In junior varsity action the Rams beat the Tide underclassmen 49-29.
Curwensville will next take to the hardwood on Thursday night when they host the Warriors of West Branch. Junior Varsity action starts at 6 pm with the varsity game to immediately follow.
Listen to Golden Tide basketball this Thursday with the pre-game starting at 7:15 pm on WOKW-FM, 102.9.
CURWENSVILLE – 72 Sam Gardner 5 9-12 20, Jed Greslick 3 6-8 12, Ben Johnson 7 3-4 19, Kyle Barrett 4 0-0 8, Alec Starr 1 3-5 5, Boone McGary 2 1-2 5, Shane Hoover 0 1-2 1, Shelby McGary 0 0-0 0, Billy White 1 0-0 2. TOTALS – 23 23-33 72
JOHNSONBURG – 57 Aaron Patrick 3 2-2 8, Joe Holmberg 9 0-0 20, Coty Gorske 3 4-4 11, Mike Shuey 3 0-2 6, Seth Weibel 0 1-2 1, Troy Padasak 1 0-0 2, Matt Shuey 4 1-3 9. TOTALS – 23 8-13 57
SCORE BY QUARTERS:
CURWENSVILLE 15 10 23 24 72
JOHNSONBURG 7 21 13 16 57
THREE-POINTERS: CURWENSVILLE – 3 Johnson 2, Greslick JOHNSONBURG – 3 Holmberg 2, Gorkse