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By Ron Musselman
For The Mirror
HOLLIDAYSBURG -- The Hollidaysburg boys basketball team lost all five starters from last season.
But that hasn't slowed down the Golden Tigers, at least not yet.
Junior Kasen Metzger scored a team-high 14 points and pulled down 13 rebounds Friday night as Hollidaysburg remained unbeaten with a 59-51 non-conference victory over DuBois on its home floor.
Coach Brad Lear's team improved to 5-0 and can match its best start in six seasons with a road victory Monday against Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference foe Philipsburg-Osceola.
"It feels really good to be 5-0," Metzger said. "Everyone kind of had us under the radar and didn't expect us to come out and win many games because of all the players we lost. But we're off to a good start."
Lear said he was "cautiously optimistic" about his team's prospects heading into the season.
"We knew we had a chance to be a decent team, but we didn't know how good," he said. "I think the jury is still out on us, but this was a pretty good win tonight."
The Tigers led all but one possession in the game and held the Beavers' big man, 6-7 junior Maddox Bennett, to only nine points, including three in the second half.
"He's the central focus of their team -- he shoots 25 shots a game at least," Lear said. "We knew that we just had to challenge his space when he got the ball. We left him loose a couple of times, but we did a pretty good job on him.
"We're tall, but we were without our post player, Ben (Zimmerman), again for the third consecutive game (concussion) and they were taking advantage of it.
"Without his big body in there, we had to play Gavin (Bell) for about 30 minutes. We couldn't afford to take him out."
DuBois (3-3) took its only lead of the game at 8-7 on Bennett's driving scoop layup with three minutes left in the first quarter.
Hollidaysburg then went on a 14-2 run to take its biggest lead of the game at 22-10 two minutes into the second quarter.
The Beavers pulled to within one again at 27-26, on Tery Wingard's 3-pointer with 15 seconds left in the second quarter, but Hollidaysburg senior Brady Steiner came back with a trey of his own in the closing seconds to give the Tigers a 30-26 halftime advantage.
Metzger, who is 6-3, hit two 3-pointers and scored nine of his points in the second half. Steiner added 12 points, thanks to three 3s, and Bell contributed 11.
The Tigers, who connected on nine 3-pointers overall, are outscoring their opponents, 317-223, through five games.
"The biggest thing about this team is they like each other," Lear said. "We are so unselfish. These kids enjoy playing together and recognize what their roles are. There is no quit in this team. They don't point fingers. They just work hard and get the job done.
"Defensively, we probably did a lot of things wrong, But offensively, we did a lot of things right."
With Bennett's game off, 6-5 freshman Thacher Hanzely single-handedly kept the Beavers in the game in the second half, when he scored 14 of his game-high 16 points.
And 6-3 junior Noah Farrell also netted 15 points for DuBois, nine of which came in the opening half.
"When we came out tonight, we were in a full court press," Metzger said. "We were up on them tight. They beat us on some, but we got back., We were playing good defense the whole time.
"We also did a pretty good defensive job on the big guy (Bennett). And our guys stepped up and made some big shots to carry our offense."
DuBOIS (51): Bennett 3 1-2 9, West 1 0-0 3, Farrell 7 1-4 15, Wingard 2 0-0 5, Horner 0 0-2 0, Hanzely 8 0-0 16, Galiczynski 1 0-0 3. Totals: 22 2-8 51.
HOLLIDAYSBURG (59): Metzger 5 2-4 14, Wolfe 1 1-2 3, Steiner 4 1-2 12, Delerme 2 0-0 5, Bell 5 0-0 11, J. Albarano 1 0-0 2, V. Albarano 3 0-0 6, Stultz 2 0-0 6. Totals: 23 4-8 59.
SCORE BY QUARTERS
DuBois 10 16 12 13 -- 51
Hollidaysburg 17 13 16 13 -- 59
3-point goals: DuBois 5 (Bennett 2, Galiczynski, Wingard, Wesr); Hollidaysburg 9 (Steiner 3, Metzger 2, Stultz 2, Bell, Delerme).
Records: DuBois (3-3); Hollidaysburg (5-0).
JV: Hollidaysburg, 66-21. High scorer-McDade, H, 15.
Officials: Denny Detwiler, Jay Detwiler, Bill Musser.