Connellsville defeats Laurel Highlands
CONNELLSVILLE – Connellsville and Laurel Highlands will not play basketball in the same section this year, but the intensity does not diminish when the local teams go head-to-head like they did Friday night at the Falcons’ home floor. The Falcons took control of a bruising game in the third quarter to overcome a two-point halftime deficit and defeat the Mustangs, 64-50, to move above the .500 mark for the season.
Senior forward Andrew Kraynak led the Falcons (2-1) with 13 points.
Junior Terrence McCrae added 12, and freshman Kaleb Ramsey scored a game high 15 points for the Mustangs (1-4).
The officials were busy, as a total of 58 fouls were called between the two teams.
The Falcons hit 21 of 41 free throws, while the Mustangs went to the line 28 times, converting 18.
“We like to play a good hard nose physical style of defense, but we didn’t want to commit as many fouls as we did tonight,” Falcons coach Nick Bosnic said. “What really concerned me was our foul shooting. We are not going to beat some of the better teams shooting like we did tonight.”
The Falcons battled their way to an 11-10 lead at the end of the first quarter, helped along by field goals from Joe Leonard, and Clay Hurley, along with a three-pointer from Justin King.
The Mustangs were able to stay close on the play of Dan Stefancin who scored six in the quarter.
Laurel Highlands benefited from some good interior passing and rebounding to outscore the Falcons 16-13 to take a 26-24 lead. Dan Hudock came off the bench for seven points, while Ramsey also hit for seven in the stanza.
“Kaleb was the dominant player for us in the first half, however, foul trouble hurt us in the second half,” Mustangs head coach Rick Hauger said. “Connellsville came out strong in the third quarter and got on a little bit of a run, while we were a little lethargic. They took advantage and got up on us by about eight points and it was an uphill struggle for the rest of the night.”
The Falcons slowly started to pull away in the third quarter, outscoring LH 20-7.
They got three pointers from Justin and Jeremy King, and Kraynak and Clay Hurley each added four points in a balanced attack as the Falcons held an 11-point lead at the end of three quarters, 44-33.
The fourth quarter turned into a foul shooting contest with the Falcons getting 24 attempts from the line, hitting 14, and LH getting 15 attempts and hitting nine.
Both teams lost players in the foul-filled fourth.
The Mustangs lost some inside strength when Hudock fouled out at the 6:34 mark. The Falcons were hurt on the guard line at the 4:20 mark of the quarter when Justin King picked up his fifth foul, taking away one of their key ball-handlers.
The Mustangs lost another player late in the game when Ramsey earned his fifth with about 40-seconds left to play.
The Falcons were able to outscore the Mustangs 20-17 in the quarter to pick up the win.
“We did a better job of hustling and running our offense in the second half,” Bosnic said. “We learned a lot from the first time we played them and tried not to give them any easy scores. We wanted them to work for every point. I thought we did that tonight.”