HYDE – Junior Nate Shirts of Brookville took his team under his wing in the final quarter as the Raiders edged the Clearfield Bison, 43-42, in boys basketball action Monday night.
Shirts scored the final eight points for Brookville, and 19 overall, as the Raiders broke a seven game losing streak to improve to 2-7 on the year.
It was a game of 11 lead changes that went down to the last seconds of the fourth period as Shirts hit one of two from the free throw line with just 1.7 seconds remaining on a Clearfield flagrant foul and simply ran out the clock, sending the Bison down to a second straight loss and a season mark of 3-6.
Bison senior Seth Beardsley kept his team in the first 16 minutes, hitting two three pointers in the first quarter and two more in the second, as Clearfield trailed by just two at the intermission, 24-22.
The Bison jumped out to a 5-0 lead to begin the contest and ended the first stanza up by one, 11-10.
Brookville would utilize a 9-0 run in the second eight minutes to take the two point lead at the half as Shawn Blochberger came off of the bench to score six in the quarter for the Raiders.
Clearfield also had a 9-0 run, in the third quarter, to pull out to a five point margin after three were in the books, 36-31.
Bison Christian Lezzer and teammate Trey Jordan each had six tallies in the third period to pace the home team.
Lezzer hit one of two from the charity stripe at the 5:10 mark in the final quarter to grab the biggest lead of the night, for either team, putting Clearfield up by eight, 41-33.
After a Brookville bucket by Blochberger made it 41-35 in favor of the Bison, Shirts took over with those final eight points to propel the Raiders to the win.
Bison head coach Forrest Campman focused on a couple of key team issues after the nail biting defeat, saying, “We’re just really limited with our overall ball handling, and in close games ball handling is normally needed to win these types of games. Plus, one of our biggest underlying problems is lack of rebounding on both ends. We continue to give up too many second chance opportunities on defense while not creating any for ourselves on the offensive end of the floor.”
Jordan ended the night with 15 points to lead the Bison, with Beardsley having 12 and Lezzer chipping in with 11.
Blochberger had 10 to assist Shirts (19) to pace the Raiders.
It was Clearfield coming away with a 31-24 victory in the evening’s first game, defeating the junior varsity of Brookville.
The Bison return to round ball action quickly, hosting Tyrone on Tuesday night to play the Golden Eagles with junior varsity scheduled for a 6 pm start and the varsity to immediately follow.
BROOKVILLE — 43
Nate Shirts 7 5-8 19 , Tate Canavan 2 1-1 6, Jack Huggins 2 0-0 5, Zach Byerly 1 1-1 3, Luke Frank 0 0-0 0, Shawn Blochberger 4 2-2 10, Taite Truman 0 0-0 0, Ben Cudworth 0 0-0 0, TOTALS – 16 9-12 43.
CLEARFIELD — 42
Christian Lezzer 3 2-4 11, Seth Beardsley 4 0-0 12, Wyatt Westen 1 0-0 2, Trey Jordan5 5-10 15, Jon Janocko 0 0-0 0, Erik Sellers 0 0-0 0, Seth Ford 1 0-0 2, Andy Brown 0 0-0 0, TOTALS – 14 7-14 42.
SCORE BY QUARTERS:
BROOKVILLE 10 14 7 12 43
CLEARFIELD 11 11 14 6 42
THREE-POINTERS: Canavan, Huggins, Lezzer 3, Beardsley 4
OFFICIALS: Dave Blair, Charles Pasternak, Barry Abbott
Bison Scoreboard:
| Date | Opponent | Score | Record |
| 12/07 | CURWENSVILLE | ppd. | 0 – 0 |
| 12/10 | CURWENSVILLE | 42 – 37 | 1 – 0 |
| 12/12 | @ Central | 29 – 50 | 1 – 1 |
| 12/14 | HUNTINGDON | 55 – 61 | 1 – 2 |
| 12/18 | @ Bald Eagle Area | 50 – 79 | 1 – 3 |
| 12/21 | @ Bellefonte | 51-50 2ot | 2 – 3 |
| @ PL Lions Club Tourney | |||
| 12/27 | vs. Harmony | 41 – 48 | 2 – 4 |
| 12/28 | vs. Purchase Line | 85 – 63 | 3 – 4 |
| 01/04 | PUNXSUTAWNEY | 31 – 69 | 3 – 5 |
| 01/07 | BROOKVILLE | 42 – 43 | 3 – 6 |
| 01/08 | TYRONE |
