With two straight wins against Indian Valley and Central Mountain, Tyrone evened their record to 3-3 before going into the Blairsville Kovacik Holiday Tournament Tuesday evening. Tyrone faced off in the first round against Berlin, who are 5-3, and prepared themselves to stop their powerful offense. The Golden Eagles stopped Berlin Brothersvalley 78-72 to move to the championship final against host Blairsville tonight at 8 p.m.
Leonard Wilson stripped the big man, Jared McCormick two straight times down the floor in Berlin’s first possessions, but being anxious and sloppy, Wilson stumbled both times creating a back and forth swing and only six points between the two teams after two minutes. However, Jared McCormick, from Berlin, took control in the first quarter scoring eight of his 19 points in the paint. He posted up and made tremendous up and under moves that nobody seemed to stop.
Leonard Wilson and Adam Corle kept Tyrone moving and in the game as they combined for 10 of Tyrone’s 15 at the end of one. Corle drained two trey’s early as Wilson intercepted careless passes from Berlin and exchanging them for two points at the other end.
“We wanted to run the ball,” coach Mike Harris said, “but we saw that they were much smaller than what the program listed so we put Tad [Chamberlain] and [Josh] Crabtree in the game. This gave us an advantage to their smaller players.”
Jason Haney came off the bench early and scored an easy layup past his defender to Tyrone a 17-16 advantage, but Bobby Czckaj came alive in the second scoring 9 of his 14 which gave Berlin the lead. Three point bomber’s could have been the strategy of Berlin as they hit three trey’s in the second quarter, keeping Tyrone’s guard/post defense honest.
Down 32-27, Tyrone made a run in the end of the first half. Tad Chamberlain and Leonard Wilson broke off 10 points cutting the lead to 35-33 with 20 seconds left in the half. As time ran down, Berlin tried taking a quick shot, but it was stolen by Leonard Wilson who dished it off to Byron Kost who hit a nice fade from the corner to end the half, knotting the score at 35 all.
This game was close all the way to the end, and Tyrone wasn’t going to give up as they lost last year’s first round at the same tournament which wasn’t too exciting.
“We want to get to the championship game,” coach Mike Harris said, “and we don’t want to be stuck in the Junior High gym more than one game. Last year we lost and had to play two games in that gym, this year our goal is to get to that championship game.”
The third quarter favored the Golden Eagles as they took a strong lead, and pressuring Berlin to force turnovers and make major mistakes. With time running down in the third quarter, Wilson seemed to know where the pass was going and ran past two offensive players to intercept a pass and take it to the rack at the other end.
This put Tyrone up five going into the fourth quarter where all the momentum had shifted in favor of the Eagles.
Jake Zorn touched the ball one time in the fourth quarter and when he got it he drained a trey, 15 seconds into the fourth, cutting Tyrone’s lead to just 2 points. Josh Crabtree and Tad Chamberlain answered back scoring Tyrone’s next 13 points with just 2:30 remaining in the game making the score 69-62.
This Berlin team definitely was a three-point squad as they converted five trey’s in the fourth quarter, two were from Donnie Zeigler. The closest Berlin came to Tyrone’s lead was 68-71, and that was it as Tyrone pushed the ball ahead and scored easy lay-ups against Berlin’s full-court press.
Leonard Wilson, Josh Crabtree, Tad Chamberlain and Jason Haney all reached double figures last night in their first round victory over Berlin. Wilson lead the team with 18 as Chamberlain and Crabtree both scored 16. Jason Haney had 10 points, eight of which came in the second half.
Even with the loss, Berlin managed to hit 10 trey’s themselves, four of which came from Donnie Zeigler. Jared McCormick, Bobby Czckaj and Donnie Zeigler all had double digits in points in their loss Tuesday night. McCormick scored 19, Czckaj had 14 and Zeigler rattled four trey’s home for his 12 points. Jake Zorn also hit three of Berlin’s 10 three’s in their first round loss to Tyrone.
Tyrone will face off against Blairsville which defeated Rockwood on Wednesday night at 8:00 p.m. for the championship. Tyrone improves their record to 4-3 and a chance at a tournament championship.
Tyrone 78 Berlin Brothersvalley 72
Tyrone – Wilson 7 4-5 18, Crabtree 7 2-3 16, Chamberlain 8 0-2 16, Haney 4 2-2 10, Corle 3 0-0 8, Clark 2 0-1 5, Barr 1 0-0 1, Kost 1 0-0 1. TOTALS 33 8-13 78.
Berlin- Czckaj 6 0-0 14, Zorn 4 0-0 11, McCormick 8 4-5 19, Zeigler 4 0-0 12, Suder 1 0-0 3, Meekins 3 0-0 6, Bowman 2 1-2 5. TOTALS 28 5-7 72.
Score by Quarters
Tyrone 15 20 21 21 – 78
Berlin 16 19 16 11 – 72
Three point goals: Tyrone-3 (Corle-2, Clark 1).
Berlin-10 (Zeigler-4, Zorn-3, Czckaj-2, Suder 1).
