LH comes back to beat Norwin
As season-changers go, you would expect all of them to happen within the confines of section play.
Not so for Monday’s 80-74 Laurel Highlands win over Norwin in non-section boys basketball. Mustangs coach Rick Hauger hopes his Class AAA team will look back on this win against Class AAAA competition and realize it was a turning point.
“Hopefully, it can be a momentum builder,” Hauger said after the Mustangs (5-5) overcame Norwin leads that reached 16 in the second quarter and hovered around 10 points into the fourth quarter. “We’ve been a streaky team so far. Hopefully this game will help us find our niche.”
LH trailed 61-52 heading into the fourth quarter, but refused to buckle under the pressure applied by the bigger Knights (8-3). The Mustangs scored seven straight to get within a field goal, 61-59, at the seven-minute mark, but Norwin didn’t relinquish its lead until LH finally broke a 67-67 tie on a Jake Swartz basket with 3:13 remaining and LH never trailed again.
“I give a lot of credit to our kids,” Hauger said. “They were playing a tough, sound, physical basketball team and just kept battling back. This was the ultimate team victory. That was a really gutsy performance by a lot of players.”
Swartz led the way with 26 points, including 20 in the second half. Patrick Mahoney and Hudson Novak scored 15 each and Tyler Eadie scored 13 for LH.
Curtis Perz also scored 26 to lead Norwin and Gage McCracken added 12. Perz scored 24 in the first three quarters and was limited to a basket in the final eight minutes.
“We went to a man-to-man in the fourth quarter because we had to do something,” Hauger said. “Tyler Eadie stuck to him pretty well. We knew he was a good shooter and an outstanding player. They got the ball to him for three quarters, but Tyler stuck to him pretty good in the fourth.
“I was also very happy to see Hudson give us a quality performance. We started to settle down in the second quarter. We had 15 turnovers in the first half, which is a lot of possessions to give up. But we limited it to five in the second half.”
LH goes back to Section 4-AAA when it visits Ringgold Friday.