Bluejay men rebound from ‘ugly’ Sterling game

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN TOM STOPPEL
The Tabor men split their first two games in KCAC play, beating McPherson on the road Saturday after losing their opener at home against Sterling on Thursday.

Tabor 92, McPherson 67

McPherson (4-5, 0-2) started the evening looking like they would give the Bluejays everything they could handle.

The teams battled evenly in the first half, with Tabor holding a precarious 37-34 lead at intermission. The Jays managed just 15 of 35 field goals while McPherson made only 13 of 31.

As the fog rolled in outside the Sports Arena in McPherson, the Bulldogs began stumbling inside against Tabor.

“I really thought the biggest difference was in our defensive game,” coach Don Brubacher said afterward. “It turned into a faster-paced game in the second half and we were able to convert those to points.”

And convert they did.

Tabor shot a phenomenal 22 of 33 in the second stanza to raise their evening’s percentage to 55.

“We had a considerably more balanced offensive effort in the second half because of the ball movement and spacing,” Brubacher said. “We simply executed better in the second half than we did in the first half.”

Tabor quickly stretched the lead to 50-40 with just over 16 minutes to play. After trading baskets for a few minutes, the Bluejays went on a 19-4 blitz over a six-minute span, ending all hope of a Bulldog comeback.

Micah Ratzlaff lead a balanced Bluejay scoring attack with 14 points. In all, five Bluejays would reach double figures. Tyson Ratzlaff and Jeremiah Randall added 13 each, Jared Reese contributed 12 and Grant Brubacher 11.

Kenny Romero led McPherson with 14 points. Jose Morales and Brian Hooks added 13 and 12, respectively.

McPherson edged Tabor in the rebounding battle, 36 to 35. Micah Ratzlaff led Tabor with six.

“I really thought the two things that were the most different in our play from the first half to the second was that we played better team defense,” Brubacher said. “Also, we moved the ball better on the offensive end. We simply passed it more quickly, more sharply, and I thought it made us quite a lot more difficult to guard.”

Sterling 75, Tabor 72

“In general, it was an extraordinarily ugly basketball game.”

That’s how Tabor men’s coach Don Brubacher summarized his team’s loss to Sterling Thursday night in Hillsboro.

On a night when emotions rose to near dangerous levels, the Bluejay men were bullied and badgered into playing a game James Naismith never intended.

“It was a violent basketball game, which, of course, contributed immensely to the ugliness,” Brubacher said. “That’s certainly not what I want to see on the basketball court, that’s not the way we teach the game.

“We warned our team that this is Sterling’s style of play, and we did not do a good job of dealing with it.”

A sub-par defensive effort by Tabor led to Sterling shooting a sizzling 56.8 percent from the field for the game.

“They shot mostly layups, and got the ball to the rim-and that was a result of poor help defense and a lack of determination guarding the basketball,” Brubacher said.

Tabor started the game well offensively, eventually building a seven-point lead near the end of the first half. The Bluejays hit 50 percent of their first-half shots-despite a cool 4-for-14 from the behind the 3-point arc.

Meanwhile, the Warriors capitalized on the Bluejays’ defensive lapses to hit 61 percent of their first-half field-goal attempts.

The first half ended with Tabor leading, 38-33. But the roughhouse play was just beginning.

Emotions boiled over when Tyson Ratzlaff was whistled for his fourth personal foul with 9:22 to play, then compounded his problems when he drew a technical foul, which counted as his fifth and final foul.

Without one of its key players, Tabor seemed to lose focus and promptly found itself on the short end of a 63-53 score with 5:48 to play.

The Bluejays stormed back behind the senior leadership of Micah Ratzlaff, who reeled off eight consecutive points over a span of a minute, including two NBA-range 3-pointers.

Tabor suddenly found itself within two points with 1:50 to play.

Clutch free-throw shooting down the stretch by the Warriors sealed the victory.

Leading the scoring charge for Sterling was Jason Hinson with 19, followed closely by Alvin Dockery, Luke Cureton and Michael Moncrief with 17, 13, and 11, respectively. Moncrief added 10 rebounds.

For Tabor, Scott Brubacher finished with 16 points, including 4-for-8 shooting from 3-point land. Micah Ratzlaff scored 13 and Brad Gattis 12.

For the game, Tabor shot 48 percent.

“The only positive thing we can hope to get from this game is an increased level of determination not to allow that style of basketball…to take us out of our game,” Brubacher said.

“It’s something we’re either going to get better at or we’re going to lose an awful lot of games this year, because that’s what everybody is going to try to do to us. It’s their best chance to win.”

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