Another blown lead costs Jays a win at Ottawa

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN TOM STOPPEL
Tabor coach Don Brubacher may be feeling a lot like Charlie Brown these days.

Every time the Peanuts’ hero tries to kick the football Lucy is holding, she invariably pulls the ball away.

With almost the same regularity, Brubacher has been watching his Bluejays build a lead only to see it slip through their fingers.

It happened again Saturday night-this time in Ottawa.

The Bluejays led by 12 points in the first half only to land flat on their backs-losing 71-69 in what may be the toughest loss of the season thus far.

The Braves took a quick 2-0 lead, but Tabor stormed back with a 10-0 run. On on at least three occasions, the Jays’ lead grew to 12-the last time with 3:19 left in the half.

Brubacher’s larger lineup featuring 6-foot-8 Derek Karber held a 23-21 halftime advantage on the glass and a 37-30 lead on the scoreboard.

But wait. Every game has two halves. And sure enough, “Lucy” came out to play it.

Ottawa slowly but methodically sliced Tabor’s lead. When Ricky Bulmer scored two points with 2:13 to play, Ottawa was as close as it had been since the start of the game, 65-64.

Two free throws by Micah Ratzlaff increased the lead, but Ottawa came right back with a bucket to make the score 67-66.

With 35 seconds remaining, Scott Brubacher hit two more free throws for a three-point Tabor lead.

Ottawa ran the clock down to 17 seconds, then attempted a well-defended shot, which missed.

But Tony Porter, last year’s KCAC Player of the Year, manhandled the rebound and forced up his his follow shot.

Jeremiah Randall gave ground the entire time but was still knocked back by Porter’s move. In what may have been the worst call of the year, Randall was assessed the personal foul.

Porter stepped to the line and converted the 3-point play with just 17 seconds to play.

After Coach Brubacher called a timeout to set up the final play to win the game or take it into overtime, tragedy struck.

Ottawa’s defensive pressure forced a Bluejay turnover with less than five seconds to play.

In the ensuing scramble, Kyle Zammar grabbed the loose ball and hit a streaking P.J. Siggal, who beat the clock and the Bluejays with a game-winning basket.

A final Tabor desperation heave was errant, and Ottawa celebrated the come-from-behind win.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s one just like the other,” a frustrated Tabor coach said afterward. “We we will not keep playing the game when we have the lead.”

“Every loss we’ve had this year-and most of our wins-we’ve squandered leads because we will not continue to do the things that got us the lead.

“We’ve taken ourselves out of the conference race because we will not continue to play when we have the lead.”

Micah Ratzlaff led Tabor in scoring with 20 points. Scott Brubacher followed with 16 and Brad Gattis 11.

Porter led Ottawa with 23 points and 17 rebounds. Siggal added 20 points.

Tabor shot 43 percent for the game compared to 40.6 percent for the Braves.

The Bluejays earned a stalemate with Ottawa on the boards, with both teams grabbing 40 rebounds.

“We’re doing better on the boards, but the biggest rebound of the game we didn’t get,” Brubacher said.

With the loss, Tabor fell to 13-10 overall and 8-6 in the KCAC. Ottawa improved to 10-14 and 7-7.

Like Charlie Brown, the Bluejays and their coach will keep trying.

“It’s the same old story over and over,” Brubacher said. “It’s a better effort, but it’s got to be better yet if you want to win.”

Tabor 68, Bethel 65

Coach Don Brubacher found a way to stop his team’s blood-letting on the boards, and came away with a big home-court win Thursday over the KCAC-leading Threshers.

Brubacher’s tourniquet to stem the loss of rebounds was 6-foot-8 Derek Karber, 6-8 Chris Myers, and 6-6 Colby Bettles.

“We just came to the conclusion that we have to base our decision on personnel more on rebounding and less on other factors,” Brubacher said. “We’ve struggled so much on rebounding, and interior defense, that we decided we had to address that.

“We worked hard with three players that haven’t been playing a lot of minutes, and my goodness, those three guys played hard.”

Like all Tabor-Bethel games, this one was emption-packed on the court and in the stands.

The game fueled the emotion with three ties and eight lead changes in the first half.

Bethel held a 22-16 halftime advantage on the boards, but five of Bethel’s rebounds were courtesy of “team rebounds,” which mainly occurred off of missed Bluejay free throws.

Neither team was able to establish more than a four-point lead in the opening 20 minutes, until Tabor went ahead 33-26, with 4:20 left in the half.

But Bethel countered with a 9-3 run to conclude the half, making the halftime score 36-35, Tabor.

While curtailing the rebounding problem, Brubacher and his team still faced another nemesis: free-throw shooting. The Jays managed only six of 13 in the half.

Scott Brubacher and Micah Ratzlaff provided the impetus for a fast second-half start for Tabor.

Brubacher found his outside-shooting touch, and Ratzlaff’s passes dissected the Bethel defense with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel.

With 12:28 left to play, Tabor had pushed its advantage to nine 53-44, much to the delight of the Tabor fans.

But you don’t amass a 10-2 conference record without some resiliency. And Bethel proved it could bounce back.

Riding the scoring of Ray Garcia and Frank Flores, Bethel managed to thresh its way back to a 61-61 tie with just 1:39 to play.

A 10-foot baseline jumper by junior Jeremiah Randall gave Tabor back its lead with 1:23 to play. But the gym hushed when Tyson Ratzlaff went down with a twisted ankle and left the game.

A jumper by Adrian Howie with 54 seconds tied the game for the fifth time, 63-63.

Micah Ratzlaff then penetrated the paint, dished the ball to Brubacher, who nailed a 22-footer with 35 seconds to go.

“Scott’s shot wasn’t necessarily the basketball game, but it obviously put us in a position to play to win,” Coach Brubacher said.

With Tabor leading, 66-63, Bethel had one last gasp.

The Threshers fired an errant shot, but retrieved the rebound and and were fouled.

Bethel converted both free throws to draw within one, but Brubacher was fouled on the inbounds pass and made both free throw attempts to secured the Bluejay victory.

Brubacher led the Jays in scoring with 20 points. Brad Gattis and Karber each had 11.

Flores was high scorer for Bethel with 16.

In the end, Tabor battled the Threshers to a near draw on the boards, with Bethel grabbing 33 and Tabor 31.

Brubacher’s experiment with the enlarged lineup seemed to please him.

“Overall, we rebounded a lot better.” he said. “It’s a definite improvement.”

Tabor shot 51 percent from the floor, but only 11 of 21 from the free-throw line.

With the win, Tabor improved its record to 13-9 overall and 8-5 in KCAC play. Bethel dropped to 13-10 overall and 10-3 in their quest for the conference championship.

“It’s a good sign for us that we can play the best team in the conference and come out of it with a win-even though we shot poorly from the perimeter,” Brubacher said.

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