Tigers foul up and out
Seldom do sports teams get judged by the beauty of their games played, only wins count. Unfortunately the Tiger basketball team played in an ugly contest with league-leading Boerne Champion but still could not win ugly. It was another key game that could have been a win but ended up being a 34-26 loss.
It is strange to watch a game with such low scoring results in today's atmosphere but teams have to do what they have to do to win the game being played. Both teams played with very solid defenses and were very patient in taking shots which ran the clock and before you knew it, the quarter had ended and not many points were on the board and no one seemed to mind as long as they were ahead. As I have said before, in close games the difference in the end result occurs at the line. Never more so than this game. The Tigers outshot BC 11-7 from the field but the Chargers took control of the line 18-2.
Fouls do happen but they can be prevented with better defensive habits. For example, in the first quarter, three fouls were committed in the act of shooting from the three zone which produced seven free throws as part of BC's 11-9 lead after one. Boerne Champion just simply did not put the Tigers on the line. The Tigers had to earn their points.
BC would open with a basket but Maddox Bloomgren negated that with two of his own. Davis Budge dropped in a three and Dylan Ducharme tied it at 9-9. Scoring was extremely slow in the second where Cade Brunson contributed two baskets to help make it 15-15 at the half. The drought got worse in the third as the Tigers opened with a basket at the 5.56 mark and never scored again as it ended 17-22. The Tigers would narrow the gap to 27-21 with 2.09 remaining before trying the ill-fated strategy of fouling and giving up 7-8 from the line. For the night the Tigers were 9-18 from two, 2-17 from three and 2-4 from the line.
Scoring for the Tigers were Bloomgren 6, Brunson 6, Budge 5, Isaac Rivera 3, Layne Herington 2, Jack Williams 2, Ducharme 2.
This leaves the Tigers with a 4-5 district record with seven games to play. Stairs are getting steeper in the standings: Boerne Champion 8-1, Alamo Heights 7-2, Veterans Memorial 6-2, Hays Johnson 6-3, Kerrville Tivy 4-4, DS 4-5, Seguin 2-6, Canyon 2-7, Lehman 0-9.