Tri-Valley knocks off Weatherly

The Weatherly boys basketball team fell into a trap Tuesday, and it couldn’t figure the maze out.

Even at the tail end of an 88-76 licking from an upstart and winless Tri-Valley team, the Wreckers never seemed to have their game in sync. Of course, the Bulldogs caused a lot of those woes with a shooting gallery-type of performance.

These dogs were junkyard tough in an uncanny way, shooting 27-for-44 from the floor, and connecting on 12 triples that would beleaguer any good outfit. Even their coach, Mike Mauser, was surprised at the way his team came to the forefront for the first time in seven league games and snapped a 13-game losing streak to boot.

“Any time you shoot that way you’re going to beat a lot of teams,” said Mauser. “I mean, we’ve been working on (our shooting) game for the past several weeks.

“What’s frustrating the last three games, we’ve kept teams in the 40s and didn’t win. For a change, we were unselfish. We drove and kicked and hit some outside shots.”

Save for a 21-all tie after eight minutes, Weatherly (6-7) just couldn’t keep pace.

Elijah Derr snuck inside for a put-back basket for the Wreckers, and with it their last lead of the night (25-24).

The Bulldogs (1-13) geared up for an 18-9 run, which was led by Brayden Smith, Chase Deeter, Nick Ziegmont and some late foul shooting from Dalton Leedy.

“They just grabbed that lead and the momentum right near the end of the half and we never could recover,” said Weatherly coach Corey Gerhart. “It seemed every time they shot a trey it went in … hey, what are you going to do.”

To be sure, this was a game of runs, and mostly in Tri-Valley’s favor. Leedy led the way with 29 points, Deeter drained 23 and Ziegmont knocked down 20. The latter had five of his team’s 12 triples.

Leading 42-34 at the respite, the Dawgs came out on another hot streak. They used a 23-11 third quarter to take an impressive 65-45 lead.

“We play hot and cold,” said Gerhart. “Yes, I can attribute that to us being young, but we’ve got to find a way to fight through these battles.”

Surely, there is enough offensive firepower in Antonio Colecio and the ever-ready energizer Scotty Zoscin. They both tallied 25 points, while Derr had 12.

“We wanted to contain Zoscin as much as possible,” said Mauser. “He’s a great player, and to come up here and take away a win, well this could help us turn the corner. At least I’m hoping.”

Weatherly doesn’t need to hope, its won six games on the season but fell to 2-4 in Division 3, but will need to get it in gear to qualify for districts.

“We’ve got to move on and forget about this (loss),” said Gerhart.

OFF THE CHARTS… Anytime a team shoots the way the Bulldogs did, it is tough to defend. They missed only seven shots from beyond the arc. The Wreckers shot 27-for-58 — and didn’t win.

GLASS CLEANING… Weatherly did have the better of it in rebounding, 30-26, with Colecio and Nick Berger each pulling down six boards. Deeter also had six retrieves for Tri-Valley.

HEATING IT UP… Weatherly got caught up in the heat of the battle at times, picking up three technical fouls.

TRI-VALLEY

Leedy 7-12-16-29, Deeter 9-1-1-23, Ziegmont 7-1-2-20, McGrath 1-5-7-7, Ace 1-3-6-5, Smith 2-0-0-4, Parobek 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 27-22-32-88.

WEATHERLY

Zoscin 10-4-4-25, Colecio 7-4-10-25, Derr 5-2-2-12, Lowman 2-1-2-6, Gerhart 1-0-0-3, Berger 1-1-2-3. TOTALS: 27-17-20-76.

Tri Valley 21 21 23 23 - 88

Weatherly 21 13 11 31 - 76

Three-pointers: Tri Valley - Ziegmont 5, Deeter 5, Leedy 3. Weatherly - Colecio 2, Zoscin 1, Gerhart 1.