Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Litchfield Dragons 64 Redwood Valley Cardinals 55 2OT

Litchfield survived a 3-point blitzkrieg by Redwood Valley, finally winning 64-55 in 2 OT in a game that was much closer than that, despite 12 3-point FG by the Cardinals, 6 by Alec Koster. Zach Whitchurch gave Litch the lead 56-55 in the 2nd OT, and Redwood missed 2 shots and turned it over 3 times the rest of the way.

From an 11-11 tie, Litch ran out to a 26-14 lead and appeared to be on its way to an easy win. For Litch, everything ran through Riley Pater, s solid 6-3. He scored 3 of the Dragons' 1st 4 buckets and assisted on another. He added a another and the Whitchurch assist for a total of 8 1st half points to go with 4 boards and 3 assists. On another bucket he picked off Zach Kinny's man, enabling Kinny to score a wide open layup.

But Redwood hit 3 3s late in the 1st to get within 28-23 at the half, and that was just a harbinger of things to come. Redwood opened the 2nd half with 4 3s to complete a shocking 24-4 run and take a 38-30 lead. But the Cardinals went 0-for-6 from beyond the arc during the remainder of regulation, and Litch tied it up on a 3 by Zach Kinny at 1:46. Neither team was able to score the rest of the way.

RJ Juell kept Pater bottled up in the 2nd half, but his foul problems that kept him on the bench in both the 1st half (with 2) and the 2nd (with 4) hurt the Redwood defense a good bit. Meanwhile, Litch guard Zach Kinny had been held in check much of the way by the aggressive D of Steven Runkel. But with the chips down, Kinny scored 3 buckets down the stretch in regulation, 2 more in the 1st OT and another that made it a 2-possession game in the 2nd OT.

Koster led all scorers with 27 points, while Runkel scored 12 and Juell added 7 with 10 boards. Kinny finished strong with 18 points, while Dylan Koll and Pater each added 11 and split 16 rebounds between them.

Player of the Game: Zach Kinny, a very close call over Koster


Litchfield ran out to a 24-14 lead at 5 minutes of the 1st half and it felt like the Dragons were in control. Instead, Redwood closed out the half hitting 3 of 3 3-poit shots to get with 26-23. But Litchfield's Zach Whitchurch hit a buzzer-beater with an assist from Riley Pater to extend the Dragons' lead to 5 at half-time.

For Litch, everything ran through Pater, s solid 6-3. He scored 3 of the Dragons' 1st 4 buckets and assisted on another. He added a another and the Whitchurch assist for a total of 8 1st half points to go with 4 boards and 3 assists. On another bucket he picked off Zach Kinny's man, enabling Kinny to score a wide open layup.

On the other end of the court, it's the 3 . and nothing but the 3. Alec Koster hit 4-of-6 and his teammates added 3-of-9 for a total of 7-of-15. The Cardinals are 1-of-7 on 2-point shots. 7 different players have scored for Litch, just 3 for Redwood.

No comments:

Post a Comment