Coble scores 37 in Tigers Cub victory

Sunday, January 31, 2016
Ryan Coble of Greencastle scored 37 points in the tough win at Tri-West Saturday night. (Banner Graphic/JOHNATHON GOODE)

LIZTON--Ryan Coble's 37 points were almost not enough, but thanks to Tri-West, missing two point-blank lay-ups as time expired Saturday, the Greencastle boys' basketball team knocked off the bruins 75-73.

The win for Greencastle (8-7 3-2 WIC) comes a night after it fell in overtime to Brown County and for Tri-West a night after it hit a shot with less than five seconds left to beat Danville.

"We had a tough one last night, too," Tiger Cub coach Troy Greenlee said. "We got beat by Brown County in overtime. You never know how your kids are going to respond after a loss like that. We were physically fatigued. We were mentally fatigued. It's just a great effort to come in here tonight against a team that really on paper we didn't have a chance to win. Our kids don't care about that and they're going to go and battle. That's something when things got tough, they rose to the challenge."

The Tiger Cubs had battled much of the first half, going up by three at halftime but started to pull away in the third. Coble had only 13 points at half.

Greencastle got the lead up to 12 in the third quarter before Peyton Hendershot stole the ball and took it in for a lay-up with 27.4 seconds left, but after the made basket he was called for a technical foul and Coble made both free throws to regain the 12-point lead going into the fourth. Coble had 11 points alone in the third.

Something about the foul revived the Bruin defense and quickly into the fourth the Tiger Cubs committed six straight turnovers that resulted in 10 points for Tri-West.

"We were kind of rattled," Greenlee said. "They were really putting a lot of pressure on us. We were trying to make plays in a hurry. With their pressure we made some mistakes. That was a time where we were struggling a little bit. I talk a lot about runs. There are positive runs and negative runs. We were able to weather both of those. When things don't go your way you have to gather yourself back and our guys did that."

The Bruins later took a one-point lead, 69-68, but the Tiger Cubs scored five unanswered to take a four-point lead.

Tri-West answered back with Derek Lucas hitting a shot and then Hendershot going to the rim after a steal to tie the game with 34.8 left.

Greencastle wanted to hold for one final shot, and thanks to the savvy ball handling by Coble it was working. Tri-West tried to pressure him from all directions but could not succeed. With 11.2 seconds left in the game the bruins left Nick Costin open under the basket while trying to guard Coble and Coble found him. Costin missed the lay-up, but he was fouled.

Costin was 1 for 2 from the line previously, but these two could have dictated going into overtime. Only making one of the two could have resulted in a loss with a lay up on the other end. He stepped up and knocked down both of the attempts.

"(They were) huge," Greenlee said. "We do that in practice. We try to set them up in situations that are as much as possible like that. When you get in that situation you've got to step up and hit them, and he did. That's a great credit to him and I thought our guys just battled. That's probably what I'm most pleased about."

Tri-West had plenty of time to get down the court and missed a shot with 4.4 seconds left. The ball went out of bounds off a Tiger Cub, so the Bruins still had life.

Hendershot had been 10 of 11 from the floor shooting, so Bruin coach Adam Bontreger had him receive the inbounds pass. He took it underneath his own basket and the six-foot-four-inch forward missed two lay-ups over the shorter defense as time ran out.

Coble's 37 points came in a big fashion, including some clutch free throw shooting. He was 8 of 14 shooting, including 5 of 6 from behind the arc and he was 16 of 19 from the line. He shot 17 of those free throws in the second half. He also had eight assists, including three to JT Matthews in the first half. They scored the first 12 Tiger Cub points of the game.

"I think that was imperative in a game like this," Greenlee said. "I thought we shot the ball well last night, but didn't get a victory. I think we carried that over into tonight. It's just one of those nights that I thought we played well the whole way through. (They) kind of got rattled there a little bit when they made their run, but I told our guys I was really proud of the way they stayed poised. They gathered themselves and persevered through."

Colin York had an outstanding night for the Tiger Cubs as well. He added 18 points and four assists.

For the Bruins Hendershot led with 25 points and Tyler Watson added 19. Watson hit the game winner the night before against Danville.

The main concern for the Tiger Cubs was securing rebounds. The Bruins outsized them and they took advantage of that with 17 of the 31 Bruin first-half points being off second chance opportunities. The Tiger Cubs only had two defensive rebounds all half.

"That was something that was hard to overcome," Greenlee said. "We gave them a lot of second-chance points. So, wow. That's one of those things that almost cost us, especially at the end, but we made enough plays on the offensive end. Just a great win for our team."

Greencastle's next game will be Thursday at home against Monrovia at 7:30 p.m.

At Tri-West

Greencastle 23 11 24 17--75

Tri-West 15 16 15 27--73

Scroring

Greencastle: Coble 37, York 18, Costin 9, Matthews 8, A. Costin 3.

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