EDINBORO – A big, physical and solid shooting Moon basketball
team took advantage of Bradford’s poor second quarter to knock the
Owls out of the PIAA Class AAA playoffs with a 66-45 victory
Tuesday night at Edinboro University.
Bradford, the underdog coming into the second-round contest,
played the District 7 champion Tigers to a 13-13 first-quarter
deadlock, but managed only five points in the second period and was
unable to recover from its shooting drought.
“That second quarter killed us,” said Dave Fuhrman, Owls’ coach.
“We just did not make enough shots.
“They are a good basketball team. Even their big guys can take
the ball to the basket and we knew there were not going to be a lot
of second opportunities so we had to knock down every shot we got
to be effective.
“The big difference was the shooting. They shot 50 percent
(28-of-56) and we shot only 34 percent (17-of-49).”
Bradford enjoyed one lead in the game, 4-3, following Ben
Lanich’s three-point play with just over 6:30 left in the first
quarter. The Tigers responded with six unanswered points, four by
Tyler Hersperger, and the Owls were down by five, 9-4, at the 5:30
mark.
Lanich, Eric Arnett, Tommy Morris and Shane Hvizdzak went on a
9-4 run that tied the score at 13-13 as the first period came to a
close.
The Owls struggled in the second quarter and Moon spread out the
floor to run off 40 of the final 49 seconds and score just ahead of
the buzzer to lead by eight, 26-18, at halftime.
“I would have been happy to be down by just six, but they ran
the clock off and then scored,” Fuhrman explained. “That gave them
momentum going into the locker room. Then they came out and hit
those two threes to start the second half. That really hurt
us.”
It was catch-up ball from that point on and the Tigers never
allowed the Owls to get back into the game.
Moon pushed its lead to 18 points, 38-20, on back-to-back layups
by Brian Walsh and Hersperger and there was no looking back.
Bradford trimmed its deficit to 15, 47-32, on Dan Vecellio’s
18-footer with just over one minute left in the third quarter, but
could get no closer.
Morris’ pass to Arnett was good for an easy layin to start the
final eight minutes of play for Bradford, but the Tigers answered
with five of their own to lead by 21, 55-34, with 5:40 remaining in
the game and the Moon faithful knew it would be their team moving
on to the quarterfinals Friday.
Arnett, with 15 points, and Morris, with 10, led the Owls, who
finish the season at 17-10.
Fuhrman was disappointed with the loss, but not the season.
“We’ve come a long way from our 1-4 start so I’m very pleased
the way the season went,” he explained.
“We lost 10 games, but they were to very good teams and we gave
a very good account of ourselves tonight.
“I’m happy for our seniors. They were all very loyal and
faithful to the program and they worked hard. They were rewarded
with a district title and a win in the state playoffs.
“We have a good core of underclassmen coming back and we will
start getting ready for next season right after our team
banquet.”
Ten players put points on the board for Moon, now 24-5, led by
Brian Walsh with 16 points.
