Clearfield Boys Dump Central In Mountain League Action, 53-41

HYDE – It was the home opener Tuesday night for the Clearfield Area High School boys basketball squad and the Bison didn’t disappoint their fans.

Now 2-0 on the young season, Clearfield knocked off the Central Scarlet Dragons 53-41 in Mountain League action.

Clearfield head coach Nate Glunt was pleased with his team’s effort, especially the play of his bench, “I thought our bench did a great job out there tonight. We are really blessed with the quality minutes they give us.”

Although Clearfield held a 10-9 lead with 3:11 to go in the first quarter, thanks to two three-pointers by senior Will Myers, Central ended up in front after one 13-10.

After Myers hit a three with the 3:11 left in the opening frame, Clearfield didn’t score again until the 6:31 point of the second eight minutes on a Myers field goal.

The Scarlet Dragons increased its lead to 18-12 with 5:51 to play before halftime thanks to a trey from senior Jacob Muthler.

To the rescue came senior Evan Brown scoring the next seven tallies for Clearfield that included two three’s giving the Bison a 19-18 lead with 3:30 to go before intermission.

Clearfield would not surrender the lead the rest of the contest.

As a matter of fact, the Bison scored the last eight points of the first half thanks to another senior, Tommy Hazel, connecting on two from beyond the arc putting the Bison up by 10 points, 29-19, at the break.

The closest that Central would get to Clearfield the remainder of the evening was 31-27 with just under four minutes left in the third frame on a basket by Brandon Buchart.

The Scarlet Dragons did get to within five of Clearfield in the fourth quarter, 43-38, but thanks to some quality foul shooting the Bison put the game away by going 7 of 10 at the foul line in the final eight minutes.

The Bison had three in double figures with Hazel scoring 19, Brown 16 and Myers 15.

The 15 points scored by Myers enabled him to move into seventh place on the all-time Bison career list.  Myers moved past the late Fred Riley (1037) and now has 1044 points with Mark Crossan next in site with 1055.

Riley graduated in 1968 while Crossan received his diploma in 1981.

Buchart and Josh McKnight each had 10 for Central, now 1-1 on the year.

Glunt did find a few things to be concerned about, saying afterwards, “We are not hitting our open shoots enough and that’s something we need to work on. Plus, we also need to get better with our inside game.”

In the junior varsity game it was the Bison topping the Scarlet Dragons by a score of 64-37.

Next up for the Bison is a trip to Huntingdon on Friday to encounter the Bearcats in another Mountain League game. JV tips off at 6 pm with the varsity to immediately follow.

Glunt briefly talked about the Huntingdon game coming up, commenting, “Huntingdon is another big test for us on Friday. It is always a tough away battle. I expect it will be an up and down game.”

Listen to the Clearfield – Huntingdon boys basketball on WOKW-FM, 102.9, with the pre-game show beginning at approximately 7:20 pm.

SCORE BY QUARTERS:

CENTRAL 13 6 11 11 41

CLEARFIELD 10 19 11 13 53

THREE-POINTERS: Muthler 2, Smith, Karstetter, Myers 3, Hazel 2, Brown

CENTRAL – 41

Josh McKnight 5 0-2 10, Jacob Muthler 2 0-0 6, Kyle Dodson 2 2-2 6, Brandon Buchart 5 0-0 10, Joey Smith 2 0-0 5, Preston Karstetter 1 1-2 4, Hunter Liebel 0 0-0 0, TOTALS – 17 3-6 41

CLEARFIELD – 53

Evan Brown 5 5-6 16, Reese Wilson 0 0-0 0, David McKenzie 1 1-2 3, Tommy Hazel 8 1-2 19, Will Myers 5 2-2 15, Ethan McGinnis 0 0-0 0, Jon Gates 0 0-0 0, Ryan Lazauskas 0 0-0 0, Ryan Chew 0 0-0 0, TOTALS – 19 9-12 53

OFFICIALS: Kenny Knepp, Bud Brennen, Dave DeLaqua

Bison Scoreboard: