Tyrone Comeback Stops Bison 63-56 In Mountain League Play

HYDE – Trailing 30-15 with a little over four minutes left in the first half the Tyrone Area High School boys basketball team dug deep, real deep, to pick up an impressive 63-56 win over Clearfield Thursday night on the Bison home floor in Mountain League (ML) action.

The loss puts Clearfield at 3-4 on the year and 1-3 in the ML while the Golden Eagles are now 7-2 on the season and 3-1 in league play.

Freshman Damon Gripp gave Tyrone a quick lead with a three point bucket to start the game, only to have the Bison score the next nine points to take 9-3 lead halfway through the first quarter.

Clearfield played well in the first eight minutes, with lots of hustle, good shot selection and being very active on defense that helped them take a 17-11 margin into quarter number two.

Bison senior Ryan Chew, with his best offensive game of the year, poured in 11 first quarter points that included two from beyond the arc that fueled the Clearfield offense. Chew would end the game with 16 tallies, all in the first half.

With 4:23 to go before the intermission Clearfield was still in command and still playing very well, taking a 30-15 lead thanks in part to three treys, one each, from Chew, Johnny Gates and Reese Wilson, all seniors.

Tyrone would have no more, and ended the first 16 minutes on a 9-2 run of its own to cut the Clearfield margin to eight at the break, 32-24.

Then a dreadful third quarter on offense didn’t help Clearfield at all as it was outscored by the Eagles 17-6 as Tyrone grabbed a 35-34 lead with 3:37 left before the fourth stanza.

The one point lead was manufactured by Golden Eagle senior Dylan Thomas who scored seven straight points after Tyrone trailed 34-28.

Both squads took a few turns at taking the lead, but when the buzzer sounded at the end of the third Tyrone had a 41-38 edge.

Tyrone began the final period of action with an 11-2 run that all but put the game away at 52-40 and just 4:45 remaining in the contest.

To the credit of Clearfield, the Bison cut it to within six, 58-52, on a basket and free throw by junior Taye Lynch and still 2:02 to go.

Going five for six from the free throw line down the stretch did the trick for the Golden Eagles in securing the hard fought victory.

Speaking of free throws, Clearfield was perfect on the night, hitting all six charity attempts while the Golden Eagles visited the foul line a total of 25 times, connecting on 19 of them that went a big way toward the win.

Clearfield sophomore Cade Walker tied for game high with 22 points, 10 in the fourth quarter.

Walker has now had double figures for the Bison in six of the seven games played.

Four players had double figures for Tyrone, led by Parker Mitchell who also had 22, while Thomas had 12 with Gripp and Jake Meredith each scoring 11.

Tyrone also won the junior varsity game, beating down the Bison by a score of 62-29.

The Bison are on the road Monday at Punxsutawney with the junior varsity game starting at 6 pm and the varsity to immediately follow.

Listen to the Clearfield at Punxsutawney game on WOKW-FM, 102.9, beginning with the pre-game show at approximately 7:15 pm.

TYRONE – 63
Parker Mitchell 8 6-9 22, Jake Meredith 3 4-6 11, Damon Gripp 5 0-0 11, Andrew Ferguson 1 5-6 7, Dylan Thomas 3 4-4 12, Brandon Lucas 0 0-0 0, Noel Politza 0 0-0 0, Blaine Hoover 0 0-0 0
TOTALS – 20 19-25 63

CLEARFIELD – 56
Cade Walker 9 4-4 22, Johnny Gates 1 0-0 3, Reese Wilson 2 0-0 5, Ryan Chew 6 1-1 16, Wyatt
Porter 1 0-0 3, Taye Lynch 2 1-1 5, Jake Lezzer 1 0-0 2, Keegan Hess 0 0-0 0
TOTALS – 22 6-6 56

SCORE BY QUARTERS:
TYRONE 11 13 17 22 63
CLEARFIELD 17 15 6 18 56
THREE-POINTERS: TYRONE – 4 (Thomas 2, Gripp, Meredith); CLEARFIELD – 6 (Chew 3, Gates, Wilson, Porter)

OFFICIALS: Kevin Doverspike, Bud Bifano, Roddy Hartle

Bison Scoreboard: