COAL TOWNSHIP - It's hard to say how many games Lourdes' young team may win this year, but for a team with one senior, two juniors, five sophomores and five freshmen, the Red Raiders are going to give it their all, and their all so far pans out to a 2-0 record.
Trailing by 10 points late in the third quarter. Lourdes rallied to beat Tri-Valley, 40-37, in the championship game of the Lourdes Tipoff Tournament Saturday. The Raiders' one senior, Mike Gilger, led the way, hitting an old-style three-point play with 52 seconds remaining for a 38-37 lead, then making two more foul shots down the stretch while protecting the lead.
Gilger scored 16 points, making 12 of 17 foul shots, had five of the Red Raiders' seven steals and scored the bulk of his points after Lourdes fell behind, 27-17.
"That's a great win for a young team," said Lourdes head coach Pete Long. "One of the things you worry about with a young team is how it will respond when it's down and we showed signs of maturity tonight. They could have folded and didn't. A lot of that came from the energy and leadership that Mike Gilger showed."
Both teams were sluggish in the first half, playing to a ragged 15-15 tie at the break, and Tri-Valley opened the second half with a 12-2 run. But the Bulldogs got into foul trouble and Lourdes patiently chipped away and got back into the game.
Tri-Valley, however, appeared to retake control when sophomore Bryce Yearsley banged in a couple of three-point shots to give the Bulldogs a 37-33
lead with roughly three minutes to play. But Tri-Valley not only didn't score after that, the Bulldogs turned the ball over several times in the final minutes.
"We're going to make mistakes," Long said. "But we got in our offense, and if we do that, good things will happen. We could have been up 10 points at halftime if we'd have made our layups.
"I thought a big key was that we got a lot of defensive rebounds. They're a pretty good team off the boards and we limited them to a lot of one-shot possessions."
In fact, Lourdes had a 26-23 rebounding edge, and if you took away Jaden Buchanan's 11 rebounds (along with 10 points) for Tri-Valley, the other Bulldogs combined for just 12. Yearsley paced Tri-Valley with 14 points.
Larry Czeponis had 10 points and six rebounds to help Gilger, and Jordan Fobia had eight points, seven rebounds and three blocked shots.
Game Summary
TRI-VALLEY (37) - Buchanan 5 0-0 10, McNally 1 0-0 2, Zemenick 0 1-2 1, Bruso 1 1-3 4, Yearsley 4 2-2 14, C. Opozda 3 0-0 6, Maurer 0 0-0 0. Totals 14 4-7 37.
LOURDES (40) - L. Holleran 3 0-0 6, Gilger 2 12-17 16, Pawelczyk 0 0-1 0, Fobia 3 1-2 8, Padula 0 0-0 0, Zarkowski 0 0-0 0, Feese 0 0-0 0, Czeponis 4 2-4 10. Totals 12-39 15-24 40.
3-point FGs: Tri-Valley (5) - Bruso, Yearsley 4; Lourdes (1) - Fobia.