Chambersburg struggles with near-misses in MPC
For the fourth this time this season, Chambersburg's boys basketball team suffered a Mid Penn Commonwealth Division loss by fewer than 10 points.
After leading by as many as 12 in the third quarter, the Trojans dropped another close one to Harrisburg, 68-59, on Wednesday night.
"We didn't rebound in the fourth quarter at all," said Chambersburg coach Shawn Shreffler. "They more than doubled their total number of rebounds in the second half from the first half."
Chambersburg scored just four points in the final quarter, which allowed to Cougars to rally and hand the Trojans another tough loss.
"I think in situations like the one we were in tonight and some other games a lot of it comes down to rebounding," Shreffler said. "It's all about playing at our tempo."
Different problems have plagued the Trojans in different games. Wednesday it was rebounding, but other time's it's been free throw shooting.
"I thought in the State College game we missed a lot of free throws and all we would have needed was to make a couple more." Shreffler said.
Against Harrisburg, free throws certainly weren't the problem. In fact they were one of the Trojans' strong suit. Chambersburg went 14 of 17 from the line. However, 12 of those came in the first three quarters, as it became tougher to drive the basket in the fourth against a relentless Cougar press.
"We let them get to their spots in the paint and we couldn't get to ours," forward Tyler Collier said. "In the last quarter I think we just lost our motivation and our energy."
While the Trojans have to figure out their end of game struggles, they will take away a lot of positives from their performance for the first three quarters.
"It showed we can hang with them," Shreffler said. "Obviously our guys aren't quite as big and that makes it really tough, but I thought we played them very well for awhile tonight."
Cole Christian led the way for Chambersburg with 17 points. For Harrisburg, Chris Whitaker and Quintyn Flemister scored 18 apiece.
Whitaker, who was recently nominated to the McDonald's All-American team, was below his season average of 25 points per game.
"He's tough to cover and I think we did a pretty good job at disrupting him tonight." Collier said.
Shreffler said, "Obviously with a guy like that you can't let him get the ball too deep otherwise he's dangerous. In the fourth quarter I thought he got some easier shots.
"Hopefully our guys will learn from these games and we'll get it corrected next time out."