Harrisburg Boys Reach 11 - 0
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THE CHOPS
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Harrisburg Boys Reach 11 - 0
HARRISBURG 76, CENTRAL DAUPHIN 75
Harrisburg reaches 11-0, but sees "20"-point lead melt away before escaping pesky Rams
On a night when Jalon Bransford lets his hair out, you'd better believe anything can happen.
Like Harrisburg running up a "20"-point lead on Central Dauphin in last night's Mid-Penn Commonwealth boys' basketball clash of unbeatens.
Like Central Dauphin scoring "34" points in the fourth quarter at sold-out Manny Weaver Gym to make it a nail-biter in the closing minutes.
And that in the end the Cougars didn't blink. They stood their shaky ground and the defending Mid-Penn champs came away with a wild win, 76-75 over the defending District #3-(AAAA) champs.
"It's a game we needed," Harrisburg coach Kirk Smallwood said. "They came to play and we wanted to play them."
It was the narrowest margin of victory of the season for Harrisburg (11-0, 7-0), which has now won "40" consecutive regular-season games.
But the frenzied pace that Smallwood's Cougars traditionally use to blitz other teams nearly did them in last night.
"We weren't going to our spots, we weren't patient, we weren't swinging the ball and we took quick shots," Smallwood said of the fourth-quarter near-collapse.
"That allowed them to get bust-outs and allowed them to get easy shots, uncontested."
Seven fourth-quarter turnovers helped shrink Harrisburg's lead from 20 points at 7:16 to just one point at the horn.
"They haven't had a game all year long, and I think they were in one tonight," Rams coach Marty Hasenfuss said.
"It proved, obviously, they have an excellent basketball team and it proves that we can be a pretty good team ourselves."
Central Dauphin (10-2, 7-1) capitalized on Harrisburg's turnovers with an 18-2 run and used four 3-pointers to rally back.
"The whole first half, we just let them dictate the way the game was going to be played," Hasenfuss said.
"To their credit, [the Rams] never put their heads down, they played hard and we had a chance there at the end."
A 3-pointer by Casey McMasters first cut Harrisburg's lead down to two, 68-66, with 1:32 left to play.
The Rams hung from two to four points for a full minute until Mark Mackey made two free throws after Harrisburg's Ricardo Brown fouled out. That made the score 74-72.
Harrisburg ran just a little time before sophomore Quincy Roberts coolly sank a pair of free throws to open a four-point cushion with 13 ticks left.
Central Dauphin missed on a couple of bombs. The Rams got the rebound each time, but each miss cost them precious seconds.
Bransford, who led with a game-high 26 points, made a 3-pointer at the horn, but the Cougars had preserved the win.
"THE CHOPS".
Harrisburg reaches 11-0, but sees "20"-point lead melt away before escaping pesky Rams
On a night when Jalon Bransford lets his hair out, you'd better believe anything can happen.
Like Harrisburg running up a "20"-point lead on Central Dauphin in last night's Mid-Penn Commonwealth boys' basketball clash of unbeatens.
Like Central Dauphin scoring "34" points in the fourth quarter at sold-out Manny Weaver Gym to make it a nail-biter in the closing minutes.
And that in the end the Cougars didn't blink. They stood their shaky ground and the defending Mid-Penn champs came away with a wild win, 76-75 over the defending District #3-(AAAA) champs.
"It's a game we needed," Harrisburg coach Kirk Smallwood said. "They came to play and we wanted to play them."
It was the narrowest margin of victory of the season for Harrisburg (11-0, 7-0), which has now won "40" consecutive regular-season games.
But the frenzied pace that Smallwood's Cougars traditionally use to blitz other teams nearly did them in last night.
"We weren't going to our spots, we weren't patient, we weren't swinging the ball and we took quick shots," Smallwood said of the fourth-quarter near-collapse.
"That allowed them to get bust-outs and allowed them to get easy shots, uncontested."
Seven fourth-quarter turnovers helped shrink Harrisburg's lead from 20 points at 7:16 to just one point at the horn.
"They haven't had a game all year long, and I think they were in one tonight," Rams coach Marty Hasenfuss said.
"It proved, obviously, they have an excellent basketball team and it proves that we can be a pretty good team ourselves."
Central Dauphin (10-2, 7-1) capitalized on Harrisburg's turnovers with an 18-2 run and used four 3-pointers to rally back.
"The whole first half, we just let them dictate the way the game was going to be played," Hasenfuss said.
"To their credit, [the Rams] never put their heads down, they played hard and we had a chance there at the end."
A 3-pointer by Casey McMasters first cut Harrisburg's lead down to two, 68-66, with 1:32 left to play.
The Rams hung from two to four points for a full minute until Mark Mackey made two free throws after Harrisburg's Ricardo Brown fouled out. That made the score 74-72.
Harrisburg ran just a little time before sophomore Quincy Roberts coolly sank a pair of free throws to open a four-point cushion with 13 ticks left.
Central Dauphin missed on a couple of bombs. The Rams got the rebound each time, but each miss cost them precious seconds.
Bransford, who led with a game-high 26 points, made a 3-pointer at the horn, but the Cougars had preserved the win.
"THE CHOPS".