Chambersburg claims Gettysburg tournament title
Trailing by 11 at halftime, the Gettysburg boys' basketball team came out of the break hot, trimming Chambersburg's lead to six points and forcing the Trojans to take a timeout.
Chambersburg responded by scoring the next 12 points, a run that spurred the Trojans to a 49-31 victory in the championship game of the Gettysburg Lions Club tournament Wednesday night at Gettysburg.
Chambersburg (5-3) led 22-11 at the start of the third quarter when Gettysburg started its run. Freshman Zach Ketterman beat his man on a backdoor cut for a bucket off an assist from Kyle Redding at the 5:06 mark, and Trojans coach Shawn Shreffler pumped the brakes with a timeout.
Shreffler's troops responded with a 12-0 run keyed by a pair of 3-pointers from ByShawn Mincie.
"We had to understand that we needed to play with more urgency," Shreffler said. "We did that after the timeout and made a nice run to put the game away."
A week earlier, the Trojans turned the ball over 26 times in a 39-38 loss to State College. But the Trojans seem to have shaken that problem, committing just three turnovers Wednesday and six in Tuesday's win over Solanco.
"Keeping turnovers down has been a practice point for us since the State College game last Wednesday," Shreffler said. "You have to value the ball better than we did that night, and I'm very happy with how we took care of the ball the last two nights."
Chambersburg's full-court press forced 14 Gettysburg turnovers and held the Warriors to 11-of-36 (30 percent) shooting from the field as many of the Warriors' attempts were rushed or well-guarded.
"They were in every passing lane and they're the most aggressive team defensively that we've faced so far," Gettysburg coach Jeff Bair said. "They gave us a lot of trouble at times tonight."
While his team sits at 1-8, Bair said he's pleased with the progress made by his young squad.
"I'm happy that we held them to 49 points tonight," Bair said. "It would've been a lot worse if we didn't handle the press as well as we did. We have stepped forward as a team since the start of the year. Obviously that doesn't guarantee wins, but we've gotten better as a team."
Cole Christian paced the Trojans with 16 points, a night after pocketed 19 markers and earned the tournament MVP award in the process.
Ketterman led Gettysburg with 10 points.