Dec 15, 2002 By Jim Kriek For The 4 min read

MOUNT PLEASANT – In a sense, you could say of this game that Mount Pleasant “streaked” to a basketball win over Brownsville. The host Vikings put together three scoring streaks, while Brownsville left its shooting game in the deep freeze, and the result was a 61-26 win for the home team in Section 3-AAA play on Friday.

The second half was a scoring disaster for Brownsville, netting one basket in the third period and six points in the fourth, for a total of eight after the break. Dave Flaherty had that many himself for Mount Pleasant in the third.

The Vikings warmed up with an 8-point run to start the game. Jake Keeler scored with a rebound at 7:28, made it a 3-point play when he was fouled as he scored, and the Vikings never looked back. Bob Patula went up the lane with a feed from Keeler, Flaherty scored from the side, and Dave Gesinski got a free point for an 8-0 lead.

Carson Thomas put Brownsville on the board at 4:20 with a 3-pointer, but Mount Pleasant came right back with an 11-point run as Keeler drove the baseline, Patula hit a layin (from Jed Delaney), Gesinski scored from the circle and again with a recovery underneath and again with a 3-pointer to make it 19-3. Paul Hlatky snapped Brownsville’s dearth at :34, Thomas got a layin short of the buzzer, and the Falcons trailed 19-7.

Mount Pleasant coach Tom Traynor observed, “Two scoring runs, 11 in the first and 18 in the third, did it. Brownsville is coming off a tough loss and that can have an effect on you. We have struggled offensively a couple of times, but now we are getting more in scoring and we hope to get ourselves established. We had good ball movement tonight, we did well on the boards, and overall it was a good winning effort.”

Brownsville coach Pete Logan was disappointed with the loss, but what bothered him even more was the deficit in all factors of his team’s game.

He noted, “We needed to make a statement coming in and we didn’t do that, while Mount Pleasant did. We simply couldn’t do a thing right, and getting only two points in the third really hurt. Right now, at this minute, we are just an average team not playing our best. We had an off-shooting night, just couldn’t hit a thing, while they put together two long strings that put us way behind and we couldn’t catch up.”

Brownsville trailed 30-18 at intermission, then came the disastrous second half. Joe Cardine got a Brownsville goal with a rebound to open the third, and that would be it for a long while. Mount Pleasant answered with Flaherty’s rebound goal, John Gray scored from the corner, Flaherty scored in front and again with Patula’s pass, Patula hit a layin (from Gray), Gesinski scored in front (from Patula) and again from the side, Patula made another layin (from Gray), and Flaherty made two on the line for a 48-20 lead into the fourth.

Brownsville snapped its deficit on Thomas’ free throw at 7:50, and one by Corey Watkins at 6:55. The Falcons then got their first basket since Cardine’s shot to open the half on a Thomas layin at 6:05, a span of 8:25 between goals, and Scott Fraley hooped an inbound throw at 3:53 to close Falcon scoring. Along the way, the Vikings ran into a cold hand of their own, going without a fourth quarter basket until Vance Rumbaugh hit with :14 left in the game, and scored another right ahead of the buzzer.

Gesinski led Mount Pleasant and game scoring with 16, Flaherty had 14, and Patula added 10. Thomas was high for Brownsville with eight.