Raiders win at ECC, 52-42

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

ST. MARYS - Within a span of five days, the Brookville Raiders basketball team won on two courts on which it has rarely had success. Because of that, the Raiders remain in the District 9 League title hunt going into this weekend.
The Raiders improved to 15-3 overall and 5-2 in the league with a gutsy 52-42 win at Elk County Catholic Tuesday night. That allowed the Raiders to stay tied in the loss column with 6-2 DuBois at the top of the league standings.
Punxsutawney (5-3) and ECC (4-3) are one game back in the loss column as the regular season comes to an end next week.
Brookville has four games remaining, three of them league games at home starting with Bradford Friday and Elk County Catholic in a makeup game Saturday night.
Next week, the Raiders close the regular season with a trip to DuBois Central Catholic Monday before hosting DuBois Wednesday in what could be a showdown to determine the league title.
Tuesday night's win on the Crusaders' court was just the third in 20 games lifetime at ECC for the Raiders and last Friday's 40-39 win at Bradford was just their sixth in 35 tries over the past 50 years. It was the first time the Raiders won back-to-back games in McKean County since the 1963-64 and 1964-65 seasons.
The win at ECC came with the Raiders playing without injured senior guard Tighe Truman, who injured his wrist in the win at Bradford. His future status is unknown at this point.
Senior Zane Hackett and Austin Burney combined to score 39 of the Raiders points in their win over the Crusaders, who dropped to 10-9 with their fourth loss in five games.
Hackett and Burney scored 21 and 18 points respectively and each scored nine points in the fourth quarter as Brookville held off ECC and won on the Crusaders' home court for the first time in 10 years dating back to its 56-53 win during the 2001-02 season.
"We had a lot of kids step up and fill roles and everybody contributed," Raiders head coach Bud Baughman said. "It was a complete team effort."
Senior Jordan Young started in his place while sophomores Jack Huggins and Nate Shirts helped fill some of Truman's minutes. Huggins scored seven points, including a 3-pointer early in the third quarter that answered an ECC three-ball made by Clayton Housler.
The Crusaders led 7-4 after one quarter for their biggest lead of the game. Brookville's 15-6 second-quarter advantage gave it a 19-13 lead at halftime and the Raiders led the rest of the way.
ECC cut Brookville's lead to two with 3:35 left in the third quarter, but back-to-back baskets from Hackett and Burney stopped the run. The Raiders would lead by as many as 15 points before the Crusaders closed the game with five straight points to set the final margin.
Ben Wortman led ECC with 16 points while Housler finished with 13 points.
ECC won the junior varsity game, 45-27, dropping the Raiders to 9-7.
In last week's game:
FRIDAY, Feb. 3
Brookville 40,
Bradford 39
In what could be termed an instant classic, the Raiders pulled out a big win at Bradford thanks in large part to their big man inside in senior Zane Hackett.
Hackett scored 30 of the Raiders' 40 points, including 14 of the team's 16 points in the fourth quarter. He made 10 of 14 shots from the field, 10 of 13 free throws including all six in the final quarter and collected 12 rebounds while blocking four shots.
"He played like he's capable of playing and I think he expects it and the coaching staff expects it," Baughman said. "He's tough in there."
Despite Hackett's heroics, it took a little help from Bradford in the waning seconds for the Raiders to rally for the win.
Bradford led 36-32 with 38 seconds left when the Owls elected to challenge Hackett in the paint, but had their shot blocked. Hackett then converted a putback off a Tighe Truman missed shot with 25 seconds left.
Following a Bradford turnover, Hackett scored on a traditional 3-point play with 12 seconds remaining. Then the Owls, setting up a potential game-winning shot trailing 37-36, walked the ball up the court. Head coach Brian Hobbs called a timeout, but as it turned out, the Owls had none remaining.
The ensuing technical foul gave the Raiders two shots, which wound up resulting in one point on a Truman free throw. The Owls then fouled Hackett on the inbounds play and Hackett came up with two huge free throws to put the Raiders up four with 5.6 seconds.
From there, the Owls' Forrest Works banked home a 3-pointer to set the final and give him a team-high 17 points.
"Obviously it was a big win and I think the kids really hung together, even when we were down 6 or 7 points with a couple minutes left," Baughman said. "The kids said there was a lot of time left and they played hard."
Hackett had a slam dunk negated in the fourth quarter when he was called for charging on Bradford's after kneeing Colton Holzwarth just below the eye.