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Panthers use 20-0 run to pick up win

LOYSBURG — One of the hardest things to do in sports is to beat a team three times in a season.

It took the Northern Bedford boys basketball team a little bit to get going, but the Black Panthers got a 20-0 run starting at the end of the first quarter as they nearly doubled up Tussey Mountain, 56-29, Thursday night in the District 5 Class 2A quarterfinals at Northern Bedford County High School.

“We wanted to try to speed Tussey up,” Northern Bedford coach Randy Meck said. “We didn’t want any part of (Chad) Morningstar in the half court. He’s big, he’s strong, he could get us in foul trouble. Tussey plays hard. I knew they were going to come in ready to play. We missed some easy buckets early, and they made some buckets.”

The Titans, though, did give the Panthers a scare early on, going on an 11-0 run powered by a Jacob Henry 3 to give the visitors an 11-9 lead after the first.

That’s when NBC’s fortunes changed as Hayden Foor came up with a takeaway and found Calaeb Diehl for a jumper, and Diehl later added the and-one to help give the home team a 26-15 lead at the half.

“We just couldn’t handle their pressure out front,” Tussey Mountain coach Jeremy Molosky said. “We tried to play their fast pace game at the beginning and it was working for awhile, but then turnovers caught up with us. We just couldn’t bring (it) back.”

Coming out the locker room, Diehl struck again scoring seven of his game-high 26 points to power NBC to a 39-23 lead after three.

Meck’s first quarter and practice message resonated with his team.

“I probably said 1,000 times, don’t settle for jump shots, and that’s what we were doing (in the first quarter),” he said. “Once we started attacking the hoop and running our offense, it opened things up. We’re a team that can play with anybody and we can lose to anybody.”

“Maybe there’s some things that I should’ve changed differently, but I’m proud of the way these kids finished up the season,” Molosky said. “We’re going to have a year or two of rebuilding, but small schools have that. We got dealt a bad hand this year, but I think we finished up pretty decent. I was proud of the boys.”

Northern Bedford will now make the trip to Windber on Wednesday night at 7.

TUSSEY MOUNTAIN (29): Morningstar 4 6-6 14, Rightenour 2 2-2 6, Henry 2 0-0 5, Lopez 1 0-2 2, Watkins 1 0-0 2, Puchalo 0 0-0 0, Traxler 0 0-0 0. Totals: 10 8-10 29.

NORTHERN BEDFORD (56): Leidy 3 3-4 10, Foor 2 4-4 8, Diehl 10 2-2 26, Claar 3 0-0 8, Reyan 1 0-0 2, Ebersole 1 0-0 2, Lloyd 0 0-0 0. Totals: 20 9-11 56.

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Tussey Mountain 11 4 8 6 – 29

Northern Bedford 9 17 13 17 – 56

3-point goals: Tussey Mountain 1 (Henry), Northern Bedford 3 (Leidy, Diehl)

Records: Tussey Mountain (7-11), Northern Bedford (11-6)

Officials: Keith Hay, Sam Zambanini, Ed Danal

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