Varsity boys lose at Delta

The Oran High School boys basketball teams traveled to conference rival Delta last night.  The junior varsity, who were playing their first game in over two weeks,  won convincingly 59-23, the varsity lost a nail-biter 81-78.

In the opener, Seth Cauble and Luke Peterson led all scorers with 12 apiece.  Peterson hit one from beyond the arc.

Camdyn Triblett scored nine, including a trey.  Landon Cochran finished with eight.  Diesel Cato and Nick Romas each added six.  Kolton Payne had four and Nic Massey had a field goal to round out the scoring.

The team was only 1-11 at the line for a paltry 9%.

They are now 3-0 in the Scott-Miss and 8-0 overall.

Coach Joe Bickinga said, "I had a feeling we would come out a little rusty after not playing for a while.  It was sloppy at the start but we still got after it and wore them down.  We also wore ourselves down a little but I'll take it since we were hustling. We are blessed with a large bench and we will use it to give people breathers.  We need that as much as we press and run.  The 2nd and 3rd quarters were big for us as we outscored them 40-8.  We still need to work on a few things going forward and that will come with practice and experience."

The varsity contest was a rematch of Monday's fifth-place game of the SeMissourian Christmas tournament that Eagles won by 10.

This time on Delta's home court, Oran trailed by double-digits in the third but tied it early in the fourth and managed a brief advantage.  With 91 ticks left it was tied at 78.  After a BobCat field goal, the Eagles had a couple of point-blank misses that could have tied it.  A Delta rebound forced an Eagle foul with 1 second remaining.  Delta made 1 of 2 and a desperation heave at the buzzer was off the mark.

Tyson Goodale topped all scorers with 30 points.  He hit two from beyond the arc and was a perfect 6-6 at the line.  Ty Johnson had 19 with two treys as well.  Samuel Shoemaker also reached double-digits with all 11 points coming during the third quarter.  He also added a trey.  Goodale finished with a double-double as he grabbed 11 boards.

Cooper Priggel and Langdon Scheeter each scored eight.  Priggel had two threes.
Dane Shands added a field goal.  Johnson and Scheeter dished out six assists apiece.

The boys were 11 of 15 from the line for 73%, from inside the arc they were 23 of 40 for 57.5% and from beyond the made 7 of 18 for 38.9$\%.

They were outrebounded 35-33 and committed 20 turnovers compared to 17 by the Bobcats.

They are now 2-1 and  9-2. The losses are by a total of five points.

Coach Joe Shoemaker told the blog, "I thought the boys played hard but we made too many mistakes with turnovers and giving up offensive rebounds. Delta also shot the ball from three much better which was to be expected playing at home. We will work in practice on making these corrections and hopefully be ready for a Monday night game against Woodland."

The Eagles travel to Woodland on Monday to take on the Cardinals at 6 pm.