With time running down, who do you think coach Mike Harris wanted the ball to go to against a strung-out 2-3 zone of Bishop Guilfoyle?
Well, Adam Corle was the clutch performer of the night, hitting a last-second three that rattled Tyrone’s gymnasium after a long, stalled out basketball game.
Tyrone came into the night with a 6-2 conference record against a stubborn Marauder team (1-8). The Marauders picked up their first conference win over Bald Eagle Area in a low scoring battle, 40-33, but ran their offense and kept time management to their favor by stalling out the clock as much as they could on offense.
Tyrone looked to key in and take control of the ball game early, but Bishop Guilfoyle thought otherwise.
“This is what we were expecting,” coach Mike Harris said. “They ran a zone against Bald Eagle Area and ran a motion offense the entire game. We were expecting to run, but we knew they were going to sit on the ball as much as they could.”
The game started out slow as the Marauders started out their offense, swinging the ball to each other over Tyrone’s 1-3-1 zone to prevent outside shots. The time of possession belonged to Guilfoyle the entire game, it was just a matter of keeping the ball and hitting their shots to keep Tyrone from running the fast break.
Tad Chamberlain scored six of his 13 points in the first quarter, keeping Tyrone in the game to keep up with Guilfoyle’s slowed down game. Kevin Hershberger scored the rest for Tyrone in the first quarter with five points of his own.
The game seemed as if it was going nowhere and the score was obviously going to be low.
After one quarter of play, the score was 12-11 in favor of Bishop Guilfoyle. Tyrone held up well in the first quarter against this tightly played game, mistakes were crucial and could effect the offense if shots were not made to answer any Marauder score.
The second quarter picked up right where it left off after a quick shot from Josh Clark, Bishop Guilfoyle did not let Tyrone score for another two minutes with just under 5:30 to go in the first half. As boring as this game could have gotten, Tyrone played as hard as they could on the defensive side to make sure that BG did not extend their lead by more than five points in the entire game. This was a key to this stalled out game for Tyrone.
After one half of play, Leonard Wilson, Tad Chamberlain and Kevin Hershberger scored 19 of Tyrone’s 21 points as they trailed 23-21 at the break. Tyrone kept with the Marauders in the first half with a ratio of eight to three in the turnover ratio.
The players from Tyrone kept their composure even though the game seemed to stay at Guilfoyle’s end of the floor.
Bishop Guilfoyle held the lead the entire second quarter, but after a Chamberlain put-back, Tyrone tied the game and looked to capitalize on the offensive side.
Tyrone forced Bishop Guilfoyle to run with the ball as they ran a full court press to start off the quarter, but ended quickly as the Marauders sat on the ball once again scoring only five third quarter points to Tyrone’s eight (Tyrone and BG both did not score a basket for over three minutes at one point in the third quarter).
Well for three quarters, neither team went on a run and the score was just 29-28 in Tyrone’s favor. Pondering a question of ‘will the fourth quarter pick up the pace,’ -not at all.
Tyrone would not score for the first three minutes in the fourth quarter as they fell behind 34-29, BG’s biggest lead of the game. After a couple of missed shots underneath, Chamberlain out-rebounded several defenders to put back a shot that cut the lead to three with 4:17 remaining.
With a turnover from Bishop Guilfoyle, Tyrone ran past the defenders, only to miss a peep in the key. The miss must have upset Chamberlain as he found his way to the basketball once again and put back another to cut the lead to just one point with 3:50 to go in the game.
“Tad really got to the ball well tonight,” Harris said. “He rebounded and had a lot of put backs on our missed shots that really was a big part of our game tonight. Any time we missed a shot, he was there to clean it up.”
Down one point, Tyrone looked to get the ball back from the Marauders and their slow paced offensive strike.
After several passes from Guilfoyle, and a minute and a half drained off the clock, Tyrone fouled Sean McConnell and sent him to the line to shoot one and one.
McConnell sunk both free throws and put the Marauders up 36-33 with 2:44 to go in the game.
It was time for Tyrone to strike back and make a stand of their own.
As Chamberlain grabbed down another missed shot, he was fouled hard to the ground and put on the line. Draining his first foul shot, Chamberlain missed the next as Wilson scooped up the ball and squeezed it in for a game-tying lay-up that gave Tyrone a huge momentum swing.
Coach Harris called a quick timeout to setup their defense for Bishop Guilfoyle’s possession with just 2:23 to go in the game.
The clock ran down to 1:55 as Bishop Guilfoyle turned the ball over on a throw in from McConnell which gave Tyrone a chance to save a last shot of their own.
With 1:45 to go in the game, Tyrone stalled the game to 0:50 to go in the game before calling another timeout. This was to ensure a plan for who wanted the last second shot.
After the timeout, the Marauders remained in their extended 2-3 zone as Tyrone swung the ball back and forth between Wilson and Hershberger. When the clock hit 10 seconds, Wilson started to drive, but was stopped immediately by McConnell so he quickly dished the ball to Adam Corle.
As he received the ball, the crowd knew he was the chosen one as he put the nail in the coffin with just 0:02.6 seconds left in the game.
“Adam hit a big shot for us tonight,” Harris said, “and one thing led to another to get to that shot with Wilson getting the big put back to tie the game. Corle played his role late in the game when we needed him big.”
The ensuing play, Josh Crabtree swatted away any chances of a desperation three from BG as the final of the game ended in a 39-36 slugfest for Tyrone.
Tyrone improves to (11-5) and (7-2) as they take on Bellefonte Wednesday night, who remains the top seed in the MAC. Tad Chamberlain led Tyrone with 13 points in their last second win against Bishop Guilfoyle (Tyrone held all BG players under double figures).
Bishop Guilfoyle falls to (6-13) and (1-9) after the loss to Tyrone. Sean McConnell led all Marauders with nine points.
Tyrone 39 Bishop Guilfoyle 36
Bishop Guilfoyle – McConnell 3 2-2 9, Kresge 4 0-0 8, Curtis 3 0-0 8, Meyers 3 0-0 6, Wiemer 0 3-4 3, Craig 1 0-0 2. TOTALS 14 5-6 36.
Tyrone – Wilson 5 0-0 10, Hershberger 4 0-0 9, Chamberlain 6 1-2 13, Clark 1 0-0 2, Corle 2 0-0 5. TOTALS 18 1-2 39.
Score by Quarters
Bishop Guilfoyle 12 11 5 8 – 36
Tyrone 11 10 8 10 – 39
Three point goals: Bishop Guilfoyle-3 (Curtis-2, McConnell).
Tyrone-2 (Hershberger, Corle).
Junior Varsity
Throughout the game, Tyrone could not find themselves a shot at the lead as the Marauders outscored Tyrone in three of four quarters. It seemed that Tyrone couldn’t contain Tom Wadrop as he led BG with 14 points in their big win.
Tyrone could not score on offense as they had no players reach double figures as Byron Kost led with nine points in the Eagles loss, 52-40.
