FLINTON – Leading by just one point after three quarters, the Glendale boys basketball team exploded for 21 tallies in the final eight minutes to pull away from visiting Curwensville, 52-40, Wednesday night on the Vikings home court.
Curwensville, now 0-9 on the year, played the Vikings even through the first 16 minutes, as the score was 22-22 at the intermission.
Tide junior Alex Olson was the key to keeping his team in the game during the first half while drawing praise from Curwensville head coach Shane Pentz who said, “Alex Olson gave us a spark with his offense in the first half that provided us a chance to come away with a win.”
Curwensville played tough in the third period, leading most of the way, until a basket by Glendale junior Marcus McRae put the Vikings up by one after three, 31-30.
It was, as mentioned earlier, Glendale exploding for 21 points in the fourth period that was the difference in the game, as the Vikings improved to 6-4 on the season.
The Tide, however, didn’t go down without another fight, in another close game that just didn’t go its way.
Curwensville, just down by two points, 42-40, with barely over two minutes to go in the contest saw the Vikings score 10 unanswered points to pull out the victory.
Most of the final 10 points Glendale scored was a result of the Golden Tide fouling in an attempt to get the ball back and lengthen the game.
Unfortunately for the Tide, the Vikings did very well from the charity stripe, going 16 of 28 overall. Curwensville was just 4 of 14 from the free throw line.
Pentz spoke about foul shooting saying, “It looks like the 12 point difference between us and them at the free throw line was just too much for us to overcome. And we certainly didn’t help ourselves at the line by going just 4 for 14.”
Then the Tide mentor closed with more praise and some advice for his team, saying, “I also thought that Rauckhorst (Trey) had a another solid game for us coming off of the bench. And I just told the kids to keep their heads high because one of these nights we are going to have things go our way and hopefully springboard us into the second half of the season.”
Leading the way for the Tide on offense was Tanner Elensky with 19, while Olson had eight points and Rauckhorst five.
Glendale was paced by three players in double figures led by Shea O’Donnell scoring 14, Damon Braniff 12 and McRae chipping in with 10.
The Vikings won at Curwensville, 57-53, in their first meeting of the 2012-13 season on January 2.
In the junior varsity contest Glendale made a clean sweep of the evening’s activities, beating the Golden Tide youngsters 33-28. Sophomore Harrison Bloom had 10 points for the Tide.
Up next for Curwensville is a home battle on Tuesday night against the Crusaders of Elk County Catholic.
Junior varsity action begins at 6 pm and the varsity to immediately follow.
CURWENSVILLE — 40
Tanner Elensky 9 1-6 19, Kyle Johns 0 2-5 2, Brett Gardner 2 0-0 4, Alex Olson 4 0-0 8, Austin Jacobson 1 0-1 2, Trey Rauckhorst 2 1-2 5, Marcus Stephenson 0 0-0 0, Nate Kurtz 0 0-0 0, Justin Brooks 0 0-0 0, TOTALS – 18 4-14 40.
GLENDALE — 52
Damon Braniff 5 2-9 12, Marcus McRae 5 0-3 10, Anthony Barnhart 0 6-6 6, Shea O’Donnell 3 8-10 14, Dakota Sinclair 2 0-0 4, Chris Wilson 3 0-0 6, TOTALS – 18 16-28 52.
SCORE BY QUARTERS:
CURWENSVILLE 7 15 8 10 40
GLENDALE 10 12 9 21 52
THREE-POINTERS: NONE
Golden Tide Scoreboard:
| Date | Opponent | Score | Record |
| 12/07 | @ Clearfield | ppd. | 0 – 0 |
| 12/10 | @ Clearfield | 37 – 42 | 0 – 1 |
| 12/11 | @ Brockway | 32 – 45 | 0 – 2 |
| 12/14 | RIDGWAY | 37 – 59 | 0 – 3 |
| 12/17 | @ West Branch | 56 – 68 | 0 – 4 |
| 12/18 | HARMONY | 60 – 62 | 0 – 5 |
| 12/21 | KANE | ppd. | 0 – 5 |
| 01/02 | GLENDALE | 53 – 57 | 0 – 6 |
| 01/04 | @ DuBois Central | 29 – 35 | 0 – 7 |
| 01/08 | JOHNSONBURG | 32 – 77 | 0 – 8 |
| 01/09 | @ Glendale | 40 – 52 | 0 – 9 |
| 01/15 | ELK COUNTY |