Brookville falls short in D9 League title quest

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Editor's Note: DuBois won Wednesday night's league showdown with Brookville, 39-30, and won the District 9 League title. The Raiders finished with a 6-4 league record and the regular season at 17-5. More details in next week's Democrat.

BROOKVILLE - Playing its third game in four days, the Brookville Raiders basketball team did just enough to squeak by with a non-league win at DuBois Central Catholic Monday night.
Zane Hackett scored 17 points, grabbed 22 rebounds to help the Raiders hold off the Cardinals, 43-40. Hackett upped his career points total to 938.
Next up for the Raiders was a Wednesday night District 9 League showdown with first-place DuBois at home on Senior Night. A win by the Raiders (17-4, 6-3 league) would claim a share of the league crown for the second straight year.
Thanks to Elk County Catholic's 34-32 win over the Raiders Saturday night, the Crusaders could grab a piece of the title with a Brookville win and a Crusaders win over Bradford. That scenario would create an unbreakable three-way tie since all three teams would've gone 1-1 against each other.
Otherwise, the Beavers win it outright if they can beat the Raiders. That would be DuBois' first outright title since 1990. The Beavers shared the 2000 championship with Elk County Catholic.
Following Saturday's heart-breaking loss to the Crusaders, Raiders head coach Bud Baughman wasn't worried about his team being ready for the Beavers Wednesday.
"That won't be hard at all," he said. "We have DuBois on our floor and the kids will be mentally and physically ready to go. We'll see who the best team is."
Against the Cardinals, it all came down to one final attempt as DCC's Jake Heigel was forced to heave up a 3-point attempt to tie the game at the buzzer.
The ball came painfully close to finding its way into the basket, but instead hit the back of the iron and fluttered away to seal the game.
"That's what you ask for at the end of the game is a chance to win or tie," DuBois Central Catholic head coach Greg Lonesky said. "We ran a play that we thought was going to give us a pretty good look but Zane Hackett, with that seven-foot wingspan, got a piece of the ball but thankfully it tipped in our favor."
Brookville tried several times to shake the Cardinals, leading by as many as seven at one point in the first half before watching DCC climb back into the game in the second half.
The Cardinals led three times in the final 16 minutes and were tied at 37-37 with just 3:10 to play before allowing Brookville to creep out to a six-point lead.
A 3-pointer by DCC's Jeremy Johnson then cut that in half with just under 40 seconds left but it turned out to be the final time either team scored.
"That was a little bit too tight," Baughman said. "I told the team even before we came out that if we let them hang around it was going to be a long night. And, guess what? It was long night.
"You have to give Central a lot of credit," Baughman added. "They came out and played hard."
It was the third straight game for the Raiders that has been decided by three points or less. They beat Bradford, 34-32, Friday before losing to Elk County Catholic by the same score Saturday.
Hackett, who scored 17 points, was the only player on either team to finish in double digits. Teammate Nathan Shirts, who hit four key free throws in the fourth, finished with eight while Austin Burney had seven.
Dan O'Connor and Jeremy Johnson led DCC with nine points each while Mike Krawjewski chipped in eight.
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Courier-Express correspondent Don Harris contributed to this story.