Hornets slip up in ICC final
By Nate Ritchey
nritchey@altoonamirror.com
CLAYSBURG — During a timeout with 7.4 seconds remaining in the Inter-County Conference boys championship game, the song “We Are The Champions” played briefly overhead.
While it was played a little early, with Southern Fulton clinging to a six-point lead, it was about to come true and there was not enough time for Juniata Valley to change that.
At that point, all the Green Hornets had time to muster up was a Cameron Collins 3-pointer that fell from about 30-feet out to set the final at 47-44 in favor of the Indians on Saturday night at Claysburg-Kimmel High School.
“Tonight just wasn’t our night,” Juniata Valley coach T.J. Anderson said. “Tonight we just didn’t play well. (We) take our hats off to a better team tonight, and they (Southern Fulton) were a better team.”
It was a contrast of styles as Juniata Valley wanted to push the ball and attack at break-neck speed. Meanwhile, Southern Fulton knew it had to slow the tempo of the game down, run its offense and limit the amount of offensive touches JV had.
“We know we can’t get in track meets with teams, and we know that team (Juniata Valley) likes to get up-and-down and they shoot the ball very well,” Southern Fulton coach Kent Hendershot said. “We didn’t want that and we can’t play that way. I thought by executing, we knew we needed to slow the game down and lock up on defense and rebound to be successful tonight. I thought we did that for four quarters.”
The Green Hornets controlled most of the play in the opening half as their lead reached a high of eight points (22-14) when Quinn Zinobile converted a layup at the four-minute mark of the second quarter.
Collins, Zinobile and Jaxson Rand led the way for JV with with six, nine and six points respectively to stake the Hornets to a 26-21 lead at the half.
Coming out of the locker room, Juniata Valley, the undefeated North Division champs, hit a wall in many forms as they struggled to hit shots which was a credit to the step-up on the defensive side of the ball by the South Division-winning Indians.
The Green Hornets were held to just five points in the third while Southern more than doubled that total with 12.
All five of the JV points came on back-to-back possessions as Collins buried a triple and Zinobile followed with another layup at the 4:16 mark that pushed their lead to 31-25.
The Indians used their defense to jump-start their offense as Mitchell Potter, who tallied a team-high 15 points, drained a trey on the ensuing opportunity.
Gabe Stotler, who also hit double figures with 12, coverted two free throws after being fouled going to the bucket on a steal, and then canned a 3-pointer from the right side off a Potter steal that gave his team the lead for good, 33-31, with 2:45 showing on the clock.
“We’ve been working hard all year. We’ve lost a couple of close games to some really good teams,” Hendershot said. “We’ve been trying to stress why we didn’t win, and what we needed to do to make those successful opportunities. Tonight, we finally did that. We finally, for four quarters, we executed our game plan for the most part, and stayed on what we need to do to be successful.”
The score remained the same heading into the final stanza as Juniata Valley went scoreless for almost half of the quarter until Collins, who finished with a game-high 18 points, finally knocked down two free throws with 4:21 to go to make it 37-33.
The Green Hornets started to get back into it Rand hit a baseline jumper and Jacob Hensor came up with a steal and layup that closed the gap to two (39-37) with just over three minutes remaining.
JV got within one on two more occasions down the stretch when Collins made a layup (41-39) and two free throws (42-41). However, each time the point guard trimmed the lead, the Indians responded with Justin Morris each time as the sophomore hit layups both times, then converted 1-of-2 from the stripe with 1:05 left to make it 45-41.
Southern Fulton certainly left the door open for Juniata Valley though as Potter and Morris failed to make the first of their 1-and-1 attempts but JV was unable to take advantage.
“We’ve been there before (with a team slowing the game down). I thought Penns Valley was that type of team as well,” Anderson said. “Coming in here, I felt we handled it — in the first half we were up. But down the stretch, we just weren’t disciplined when it came to our situation on offense … we just got to learn to lock in and grow from it. We will get better from this.”
After a Green Hornet miss and turnover, Potter strolled to the line and hit both shots in the bonus situation with 7.4 ticks left.
Juniata Valley will enter the District 6 Class 1A playoffs with a 16-6 mark, while Southern Fulton will start District 5 Class 1A action with a 17-6 record.
JUNIATA VALLEY (44): Collins 6 4-4 18, Zinobile 4 3-3 11, Hensor 2 0-1 5, Rand 3 0-0 8, Leri 0 0-2 0, Musser 0 2-2 2, Rupert 0 0-0 0, Reihart 0 0-0 0. Totals: 15 9-12 44.
SOUTHERN FULTON (47): Lynch 3 0-0 6, Morris 3 2-5 8, Stotler 4 2-2 12, Minteer 0 0-0 0, Potter 4 5-7 15, Ritz 3 0-0 6, Ensor 0 0-0 0. Totals: 17 9-14 47.
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Juniata Valley 10 16 5 13 — 44
Southern Fulton 8 13 12 14 — 47
3-point field goals: Juniata Valley 5 (Collins 2, Rand 2, Hensor 1); Southern Fulton 4 (Stotler 2, Potter 2).
Records: Juniata Valley (16-6); Southern Fulton (17-6).
Officials: Rich Gergely, Justin Frear, Jason Moschgat.
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