Last Saturday was a day of excitement in Flier basketball country.
Thanks to strong efforts and team play, the eighth grade Flier boys captured the SBC Tournament Championship with a 26-25 win over Huron at Briar Middle School. The champs utilized some clutch scoring from Gabe Dowling and Carson Rieman in the final quarter to edge the Tigers.
The Fliers spurted quickly to a good lead in the opening frame. Dowling hit three field goals and scored half of his game high 14 points in the first. The eighth grade team of Coach Ryan Webb used their overall physical aggressiveness to keep the high- powered Tiger offense in check.
After an 11-6 Flier lead in the first, the blue and gold met a more feisty Huron bunch in the second. The Fliers netted no points from their efforts while Huron’s Tiger growled its way to a 12-11 halftime lead. Turnovers also began to stymie the Flier opportunities.
In the third quarter, the shoe went to the other foot. This time the Fliers clamped down on defense to hold Huron to zero points. Meanwhile, though having continued difficulty exploiting the red and white’s defense, the Fliers used two more buckets from Gabe and one from Ryan Lozier to grab the lead 17-12.
Any great championship game at any level has its ebbs and flows plus plenty of frustration on both sides. The hungry Tigers eventually fought back in the last period of play. Tied at 17, however, Clyde used a layup by streaking Carson Rieman and field goal by Dowling to stretch the lead to 21-17 with just 1:20 left. Still, the scrappy Tigers reached deep in their den to get the score within one, 21-20, with just 37 ticks left.
Carson, a quiet but quite dangerous guard, joined Gabe in scoring the decisive points and with 13 seconds left, the Fliers were title-bound with a 26-22 lead. A meaningless bomb by Huron’s top scorer at the buzzer only made the score closer.
In the seventh grade game, the 14-4 Fliers went up against 17-0 Goliath, actually Perkins. Playing the role of the Biblical David, the scrappy blue and goal used some excellent quickness to match Perkins with a 12-12 quarter start. Caden Berger, Andrew Bauer, and Shane Hohman led the Fliers with 6, 4 and 2 points, respectively.
In the second quarter, sign of future trouble seemed to invade the seventh graders’ dreams of an upset. Caden managed the lone field goal compared to five buckets by Perkins. End result? Perkins won, 24-16.
The third quarter signaled to Flier fans that the unbeaten Pirates were not visiting McPherson Middle School to help the host team raise the bigger trophy. The talented black and white poured in eight field goals to just two for Clyde to put the game effectively out of reach at 42-23 at quarter’s end.
The seventh grade kept battling to the end. The Fliers outscored the Pirates in the fourth, 13-4, to narrow the final verdict to 46-36.
