10 observations as A-C boys hold off Conrad Weiser
ANNVILLE – After a tough two-game losing streak that followed an impressive 4-0 start, Annville-Cleona bounced back with a 59-51 win over Conrad Weiser Wednesday in the Annville-Cleona High School Holiday Tournament.
With the win, the Dutchmen (5-2, 1-2) will face Lancaster County Christian (4-3, 1-0) in Thursday’s tournament championship game. LCCS defeated Halifax 46-32 earlier Wednesday. Tip-off Thursday is at 6:30.
Here’s 10 observations from the Dutchmen’s victory.
- Carrying a 10-point lead into the fourth quarter, things got a little too close for comfort as A-C was outscored by the Scouts (2-5, 0-0) 12-7, cutting the Dutchmen lead to 54-51 with 1:18 left. But A-C held on defensively, while finishing the game at the free throw line, going 5-of-6. The Dutchmen finished 15-of-21 for the game.
- Weiser tried making things interesting in the third as well, starting the quarter on a 9-2 run, cutting its deficit to 35-29 with 5:54 left in the quarter. But as it did all game, A-C responded and kept itself at arm’s length, outscoring the Scouts 10-8 to close out the quarter.
- Though the Dutchmen overall did a pretty good job taking care of the basketball with only 14 turnovers total, A-C committed turnovers on five of six possessions during Weiser’s run late in the fourth quarter to get back within three.
4. Cameron Hoch had another solid game on both ends of the floor, finishing with a game-high 23 points, including a 7-of-9 performance from the charity stripe. Defensively, Hoch had a big time effort diving to deflect a pass, which led to a turnover and fast break opportunity for his team in the second quarter. Hoch then was rewarded for his defensive effort with the lay-in on the other end. Hoch also recorded a block with authority early in the third, as well as two big rebounds to help close the game in the fourth.
5. From Hoch on his performance, “Well, we have two great big men with Issac (Burris) 6-foot-8, and Noah (Myers), 6-foot-4, so teams usually focus on them, and that usually means I get kind of a good player. But I’m confident I can beat whoever I go against.”
6. Speaking of Myers, he was the only other Dutchmen in double figures with 12 points, including 3-of-4 from the foul line.
7. Though the Dutchmen edged the Scouts on the boards 22-21, Weiser did have a big advantage in offensive rebounds, 10-1.
8. A-C also had no problem handling Weiser’s full court press, virtually shredding through it, and often finishing with easy lay-ins.
9. The Dutchmen also had to overcome losing some key pieces to foul trouble. Burris had two fouls at the 2:49 mark of the first quarter, eventually fouling out with 5:08 left. Myers had four fouls with 1:52 left in the third, but managed his way through the rest of the game. Ryan Mathews also had three fouls in the third as well.
10. From A-C coach Chris Bradford on his team’s overall performance, “Bend but don’t break would be a good way to describe it. When we hit adversity, guys made free throws, and I think the effort we had defensively was enough, but not quite where we want it to get to. We’d like to bottle teams up and keep them under 50, and we were just short of that goal. But when we’re putting up 59 points, that’s a good sign for us too. Obviously we had our foul trouble with four or five starters having that in the first half. So when we do that and have other guys making contributions…we had Cam flying all over the place…that usually puts us in a good spot.”