HYDE – Senior Christian Lezzer hit a three point shot with just under seven seconds remaining in the game on Wednesday night to give the Bison a huge 44-41 victory over the Central Dragons on the Bison home court.
The 25-foot trey from the top of the key by Lezzer enabled Clearfield to break a two game losing streak and move to 4-10 on the season. The Dragons are now 8-5 on the year.
The Dragons won the first encounter with Clearfield back on December 10, at Central, 55-32. This time, though, things were certainly different as the Bison kept the Dragons in their sites and won at the end in an exciting battle.
One gigantic difference in this contest was at the foul line. In the first game, the Dragons took a whopping 31 free throws, making 19. This time out Central was 5 of 7, while Clearfield went 6 of 7, in what was a very evenly called game.
Clearfield head coach Forrest Campman, quite happy with the win, said afterwards, “After we got down early in the game and then came back I knew we would be in it the entire night. We’re starting to get help off of the bench and the nine that are playing, right now, give us a comfortable rotation.”
The Dragons jumped out to an early 11-2 lead before Clearfield got back-to-back buckets by Erik Sellers and Will Myers to cut the deficit to 11-6 after the first quarter.
With Clearfield trailing in the second eight minutes, 14-8, the Bison went out in front, 17-14, with a 9-0 run, fueled by Derek Hryn’s three pointer. Hryn’s big basket started the run at the 6:10 mark of the second frame.
Although Central would regain the lead before the intermission, Clearfield senior Wyatt Westen scored at the buzzer to get his team to within three, 22-19, with 16 minutes left to play.
In what was probably the best half of basketball Clearfield has played this year, the Bison outscored the Dragons in the second half 25-19 with patient, smart basketball.
Clearfield added an 8-0 run starting with 5:09 remaining in the third quarter and would end the third taking the lead on a Myers basket and subsequent free throw with just one second left, 33-32.
The Bison would not give up the lead in the final eight minutes, and at one point took its biggest margin of the game, 38-32 before Central knotted it all up at 41-41 with 22 ticks left on the clock.
Then Lezzer did his thing and Clearfield had its best win of the season.
Clearfield was led on offense, a balanced one, by Sellers with 10 and Myers adding 9.
Central had two players with 13 each in Zach Slagenweit and Brenden Vollkommer. Vollkommer had four of the Dragons eight three pointers.
Campman liked what he saw in his players, especially Myers and Hryn, commenting, “I thought obviously that Will (Myers) is playing better each time out. He still makes some freshman mistakes out there but he also makes some good veteran plays. And Hryn (Derek) gave us a big lift off of the bench by hitting those two three pointers.”
In junior varsity action, Clearfield won 30-26, defeating the Central underclassmen in the evening’s opening game.
Clearfield will entertain Huntingdon on Friday night with the JV contest tipping off at 6 pm and the varsity to immediately follow.
The Bearcats beat the Bison earlier this season, on December 13, in Huntingdon, 65-41.
CENTRAL – 41
Trevor Forshey 2 0-0 5., Ryan Mills 0 0-0 0, Zach Slagenweit 5 0-0 13, Alex Lafferty 0 4-4 4, Lucas Patterson 2 0-1 4, Ben Brumbaugh 1 0-0 2, Brenden Vollkommer 4 1-2 13, TOTALS – 14 5-7 41.
CLEARFIELD – 44
Seth Ford 0 0-0 0, Christian Lezzer 3 0-0 7, Erik Sellers 5 0-0 10, Jon Janocko 1 2-2 4, Will Myers 3 2-3 9, Wyatt Westen 1 2-2 4, Andrew Brown 0 0-0 0, Derek Hryn 2 0-0 6, Cody Spaid 2 0-0 4, TOTALS 17 6-7 44.
THREE-POINTERS: Hryn 2, Myers, Lezzer, Vollkommer 4, Slagenweit 3, Forshey
SCORE BY QUARTERS
CLEARFIELD 6 13 14 11 44
CENTRAL 11 11 10 9 41
OFFICIALS: Bud Brennen, Ken Knepp, George Schneider
Bison Scoreboard:
| Date | Opponent | Score | Record |
| 12/09 | CURWENSVILLE | 38 – 56 | 0 – 1 |
| 12/10 | @ Central | 32 – 55 | 0 – 2 |
| 12/13 | @ Huntingdon | 41 – 65 | 0 – 3 |
| 12/18 | BALD EAGLE AREA | 57 – 89 | 0 – 4 |
| 12/20 | @ Bellefonte | 52 – 51 | 1 – 4 |
| @ PL Lions Club Tourney | |||
| 12/27 | vs. Bald Eagle Area | 41 – 68 | 1 – 5 |
| 12/28 | vs. Harmony | 51 – 32 | 2 – 5 |
| 01/03 | @ Punxsutawney | 38 – 70 | 2 – 6 |
| 01/06 | TYRONE | ppd. | 2 – 6 |
| 01/07 | @ Brookville | ppd. | 2 – 6 |
| 01/09 | TYRONE | 40 – 62 | 2 – 7 |
| 01/10 | @ Penns Valley | 39 – 68 | 2 – 8 |
| 01/14 | PHILIPSBURG-OSCEOLA | 71 – 56 | 3 – 8 |
| 01/17 | ST. MARYS | 41 – 51 | 3 – 9 |
| 01/20 | DUBOIS | 49 – 65 | 3 – 10 |
| 01/22 | CENTRAL | 44 – 41 | 4 – 10 |
| 01/24 | HUNTINGDON | ||
| 01/28 | @ Brookville | ||
| 01/29 | @ Bald Eagle Area | ||
| 01/31 | BELLEFONTE | ||
| 02/05 | @ Tyrone | ||
| 02/07 | PENNS VALLEY | ||
| 02/12 | @ Philipsburg-Osceola | ||
| 02/14 | @ Curwensville |