HYDE —Despite sitting at 0-2 entering Tuesday night’s game, the Clearfield Bisons and head coach Forrest Campman were confident in their abilities and talent on the court. It was a matter of time before the entire team put things together for 32 total minutes.
When the Scarlet Dragons of Central made the trip to the Arthur J. Weiss Gymnasium, what they were met with was a team that was ready to put together four quarters of action, and finally put a “W” on their record.
That is exactly what happened as the Bisons played tough, and had seven players put points on the board to score their first win of the season, and did so in front of the home crowd with a final of 51-40.
Afterward, Campman talked about his team and how they played.
“I think we played an excellent game overall. I thought in the first quarter we played strong, the second quarter we stayed even. We kind of lost our minds in the third quarter, but in the end we made some shots and finished well,” Campman said.
The game started out quick as the Bisons pulled out to a 7-2 lead, and held it through the first eight minutes of play, keeping the score 10-4 at the first buzzer. The second quarter was strong for both sides, as Brandon Myers scored eight points for Central. Unfortunately, the rest of the Dragon offense managed to put just six points on the board. Clearfield answered with another eight points from Shawn Lord and five more from Trey Jordan to set the halftime score at 25-18.
Central’s Myers would end the night with a team and game-high 22 points, while also doubling up in the rebounds as he had 14 boards on the night.
But the third quarter saw the Bisons start to make some mistakes and get into foul trouble, and Central took advantage by taking the lead midway through the period.
“We had (Christian) Lezzer with three fouls in the first half, plus Shawn had another three, so we had to play a different style in the second half, gave up some shots,” Campman said. “It’s tough to play like that.”
But, the fourth quarter saw the Bisons turn up the pressure and make it difficult for Central to pull close, as ball movement was big for Clearfield as Lezzer would put up six points in the period, while Robbie Myers added another eight, all on foul shots for a team-high 14.
Myers led the team in points and rebounds, as he pulled down 10 boards. Curtis Frye was big on getting his teammates the ball when needed, as he led the team in assists with seven.
What Campman was most impressed with was how his team all contributed. After the last game on Friday night, he said that his team had “great athletes, but not many ball-handlers.” Against Central, seven of the eight players that saw action on the court contributed points, and six had rebounds. Plus, he was proud of his team for holding their opponents below 50 points, which Campman says is big when trying to win games.
“When you hold a team under 50 points, you should win a lot of games,” Campman said. “If we can somehow get our offense to get more than 50 points like tonight, we can win many games.”
Clearfield also was able to keep control of the ball much better in this game, turning the ball over just seven times, compared to the double-digit turnovers they had in both their first two games.
“You saw in our last game, we had 22 turnovers. Tonight, we had seven. So in those other games, there’s 12 or 14 possessions we couldn’t get a shot off, while the others we lost in transition,” Campman said. “I mean, our shooting percentage wasn’t great, but even if you are just shooting 25 percent, it’s better to get those attempts versus giving up a possession.”
The junior varsity squad didn’t fair as well as they lost to the Dragons, 48-33.
Clearfield (1-2) now has a short break before they end their four-game homestand to open the season as they will host Bellefonte on Friday night before the Christmas break.
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Central  4  14  10  12  –  40
Clearfield  10  15  6  20  –  51
Central 40
Greenland 1 0-0 2, Cunningham 0 2-2 2, Forshey 0 0-0 0, Ritchey 1 0-6 2, Couch 0 0-0 0, Slagenweit 2 0-0 4, Farkus 1 0-0 2, Hamm 0 0-0 0, C. Dickson 0 0-0 0, Negley 1 0-0 2, Ebersole 2 0-0 4, Price 0 0-0 0, Kreider 0 0-0 0, Myers 6 10-14 22, J. Dickson 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 12 12-22 40.
Clearfield 51
Lezzer 2 1-3 6, Swales 0 2-2 2, Gaylor 0 0-0 0, Frye 1 2-2 4, Beardsley 2 0-0 5, McCracken 0 0-0 0, Woomer 0 0-0 0, Lord 4 0-0 8, Bell 0 0-0 0, Jordan 5 0-0 12, Hertlein 0 0-0 0, Wood 0 0-0 0, Janocko 0 0-0 0, Myers 2 10-12 14. TOTALS 16 15-19 51.
FIELD GOALS MADE/ATT:Â CT-12/27Â CF-16/46
TEAM REBOUNDS:Â CT-23Â CF-27
TEAM FOULS:Â CT-16Â CF-17
TURNOVERS:Â CT-14Â CF-7
Three-Point Shots:Â CENTRAL-None; CLEARFIELD-Lezzer, Beardsley, Jordan (2)
