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Tigers’ season comes to an end in road OT defeat

By Ron Bracken

For the Mirror

BELLEFONTE — Hollidaysburg coach Brad Lear stood outside his team’s locker room and admitted he was in unfamiliar territory following his team’s 46-34 overtime loss to Bellefonte in the District 6 5A playoffs here last night.

“It’s February 19 and I’m disappointed,” he said. “I’m not used to going home now.”

The Golden Tigers missed their chance to keep their season alive when, after holding the ball and playing for the last shot in regulation, they missed a field goal opportunity sending the game into overtime where Bellefonte outscored them, 15-3.

“We just made too many mental mistakes,” Lear said. “They made theirs in the third quarter and we made ours in the fourth and in overtime. At the end of the game we made a couple of mistakes and their big guy (Caleb Rockey) got wide open for a couple of easy layups.”

Rockey, a power forward who is definitely powerful and who is headed to Bloomsburg to play football, had a game-high 19 points, nine of them in the fourth quarter and in overtime.

“Our goal was to stop (Nate) Tice and keep (Ben) McCartney under 10 and we did that,” Lear added. “But we gave up 19 to their big guy. We didn’t have an answer for him.”

The Tigers took an early lead as Jaden Delerme hit a pair of field goals to put Hollidaysburg up, 8-4 after one period but Bellefonte went on a 15-6 run in the second behind a pair of field goals from Noah Badger, four points from Rockey and a three-point field goal from McCartney for a 19-14 lead at the break.

The game tightened up in the third quarter as Delerme hit on a pair of field goals out of the break and Josh Holsopple hit a trey and another field goal to put the Tigers on top, 23-21. Bellefonte was only able to put five points in the board in the quarter. Delerme added another field goal and Sam Servello tacked on a free throw to give Hollidaysburg a 26-23 lead as the game moved into the final quarter.

That’s when Bellefonte coach Kris Glunt called for a a full court press and forced a couple of turnovers and Rockey converted five free throws and a field goal to give the Raiders a 31-28 lead with 2:06 left in the game. But Servello connected n a three-pointer with 1:35 left to tie the score at 31-31.

“It was unusual for us not to be able to handle the press,,” Lear said. “We played a lot of WPIAL teams and some 6-A teams so we saw it and we were able to handle it. But they put it on us at a good time. Mentally we made some mistakes and it just snowballed and they were able to score a couple of times.”

In overtime Bellefonte got an easy basket from Noah Badger underneath and then Servello hit a three-pointer to give Hollidaysburg a short-lived 34-33 lead. As it turned out, those were the last points of the night for the Golden Tigers. Rockey scored on a layup, Badger added two more layups to make it 39-34 and the Raiders converted seven foul shots to set the fnal.

“At the end of the game you can’t have turnovers, you can’t miss free throws and easy layups and you can’t make mental mistakes and we did all three,” Lear said.

The Raiders’ game plan was to keep Servello under control and they did, holding him to seven points. Delerme was the Tigers leading scorer with 14 pints.

“We wanted to keep him (Servello) to a minimal number of points,” said Raider head coach Kris Glunt. “What an effort we got from our kids. And we rebounded well. We saw that they (Hollidaysburg) were getting a lot of points off defensive rebounds. ”

Glunt also singled out Rockey for his performance.

“He’s our leader,” he said. “He’s a passionate kid, a hard worker. I knew when he walked through the door three years ago we were getting someone we could build around. Bloomsburg is getting a good one.”

Bellefonte, now 15-7, moves on to play Johnstown in the title game.

HOLLIDAYSBURG (34): Batzel 2 0-0 4, Delerme 7 0-0 14, Barton, 1 0-1 2, Servello 2 1-2 7, Holsopple 2 1-1 7. Totals–15 1-3 34.

BELLEFONTE (46): Maggs 1 0 0 2, Tice 0 6-6 6, McCartney 2 1-1, 6 , Badger 5 1-2 11, Rockey 6 7-8, 19, Decker 1 0-2 2. Totals — 15 13-17-19

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Hollidaysburg 8 6 12 5 3 — 34

Bellefonte 4 15 4 8 15 — 46

3-point goals: Bellefonte 1 (McCartney); Hollidaysburg 3 (Holsopple, Servello 2)

Officials: Dan Gales, Joe Hanna, Ryan Ehrie

Records: Bellefonte (15-7); Hollidaysburg (11-11).

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