Both McPherson Middle School Boys Basketball teams returned to action on Thursday for their second game of the season.
In the 8th Grade Game, Head Coach Tyler Brown noted, “Derby had everything we thought they would have tonight. He mentioned the Jr. Panthers as extremely big, athletic and physical. He said, “We didn’t decide to match that toughness until the 4th quarter which was the only quarter we won 10-8.”
Brown added, “When you play a team with those kinds of intangibles you have to come ready to battle.” He said, “Out of both the games tonight Carter Bengtson is who I thought stood out tonight. One of the shortest guy on the team was stealing passes and grabbing much needed rebounds for our team. But in big games like this you need that kind of effort from everyone.”
“It may be a long season if they don’t start believing in what we are trying to run. We struggled to run our stuff whether it is our sets or just the offenses we have put in place.” Defensively he said, when Derby shot a free throw his team struggled to box out and rebound as a whole. He said, “We gave up so many boards in that type of situation I think Coach K would have keeled over. Nothing worse than a team getting multiple chances to score every time down the floor.”
“Even with that we still held them to 38 points which I typically like to try to hold teams to mid/low 30s so we really were not to far off from our goal. Besides struggling to rebound, we just really struggle to score tonight. Coming out of half time we only hit one shot, a 3 pointer in the 3rd quarter and that was it. That tells you how well we shot the ball tonight. But like Coach Goerzen said in his remarks we never stopped fighting! And it was nice to at least win the last quarter of the game.” Coach Brown concluded by saying, “Nevertheless, we have to put that behind us and start getting ready for Newton on Monday.”
Scoring Summary
Ashton Malm 9
Cole Cooper 4
Carter Bengtson 4
Cru Buchman 4
Jonas Emery 4
Dane Becker 1
They A-Team moved to 1-1 on the season, as did the B-team after a 38-26 loss to Derby. Coach David Goerzen said, “We came out a little flat tonight and as a result, It was hard for us to get anything going. We didn’t get a lot of good looks on offense, we had several turnovers, and probably the biggest issue tonight was getting out rebounded the entire game.” Coach Goerzen concluded by saying, “One thing that was promising is that our guys never gave up tonight. They kept fighting till the end of the game. Obviously we have some work to do, but I know our guys are up for the challenge.”
Scoring Summary
Jonas Emery 7
Ben Bocox 6
Jayvonte Body 5
Nolan Pearcy 5
Will Domingo 2
Dane Becker 1
The 7th Graders were able to pick up their first win in A and B Games on Thursday, the A-Team winning 51-17, and the B-Team winning 31-17. Following the games, Head Coach Jay Crawford said, “A-Team players played really well and showed great improvement from our first game.We were able to generate several turnovers that lead to us scoring.The effort we played with was what we have talked to them about from our first practice, I’m very proud how we competed and to do so with toughness and passion. Our defense made it very hard for Derby to score and we want to continue to build that.
Scoring Summary
Tripp Pelzel 24
Tre Winburn 16
Drake Timson 5
Carter Melton 4
Jaxon Hoover 2
Following the B-Team Game, Coach Crawford said, “It was a great game by this group, so happy to see their improvement, and really proud of their effort.” He said, “We had 8 players score and that showed how much they have improved. It was great to see them take shots and make some big ones.” He mentioned that Derby made a little run near the end, but he said, “Our guys really made some good, tough plays to put distance between us and them.”
Scoring Summary
Logan Starks 9
Gavin Heider 5
Kepple Butcher 4
Cooper Bohme 4
Blake Harrington 3
Brody Milleson 2
Colt Chapman 2
Holyton Hamblin 2
