Sports

Forestview leave the Mustangs’ corral with a pair of wins

TERRANCE THOMAS, LTN Staff Writer

Jan. 30, 2002 - DENVER — Those who attended the boys basketball game Tuesday night at East Lincoln may owe to school some money.

Those fans got more than their money’s worth.

They saw Forestview boys hold onto a 62-60 overtime win against the Mustangs.

It was the rubber match between the visiting Jaguars and the Mustangs.

 East won the first one in the First Charter Holiday Classic. Forestview took the first conference game.

Game 3 meant a lot to both teams who are battling for playoff spots.

It came right down to the end, With 12 seconds left, Mustang forward Tyrone Rendleman drained a dazzling turnaround jumper from 3-point range to get East within one point of the lead. East fouled quickly and after the Jaguars hit one-of-two free throws, East had a chance to forced the game into double overtime.

But Forestview broke up a pass down low and the two teams scrambled on the floor underneath the Mustangs’ basket as time ran out.

Forestview players jumped for joy. East players hit and kicked chairs in disgust.

It was an exciting game to watch but a tough game to lose.

“We had a shot to tie it, but we couldn’t get it back up,” said East assistant coach Chip Ashley, who was filling in for head coach Neil Hodges who was out sick. “We played extremely well when we needed to. We just didn’t execute at the end. It was a game against two closely matched teams. If we would played them ten times, we would have won five times and they would have won five times.”

The game was tied on nine occasions and there were nine lead changes.

Forestview dashed out of the gates leading 9-4, 22-15 and 34-24 at the half.

But each time the Mustangs rallied back thanks to guard Cory Howard’s 10 first-half points.

East took the lead in the third when center Blake Ketner hit two inside layups to give the Mustangs. Then Howard gunned a 3 to give East’s its biggest lead of the game 42-36.

But Forestview rolled off seven straight points to retake the lead. But East led at the end of the third, 44-43.

The fourth quarter was intense. The first five minutes were both teams exchanged the leads before Forestview went up by three with 2:51 to play.

East’s Jason Burgess got his club back in the game quickly. He missed an inside shot from the left side, got the rebound, went back up, missed, got the rebound and then he went underneath the basket to the other side and was fouled as he put the ball in.

He hit the foul shot to tie it.

After Forestview Antonio Rankin scored. Howard hit a floater to tie it at 53 with 1:12 left.

East had a chance to win it with 30 seconds left but Jerel Wingate’s pass went out of bounds.

Turnovers followed East into overtime which allowed Forestviw to go up 59-55 with a minute to play and 62-60 with East having the final chance.

The loss dropped East to (10-7, 3-5 in the Big South 3A).

Howard poured in a team-high 19 points. Burgess and Tripp Miller both had nine.

Forestview Joey Asis had a terrific game with 19 points.

Forestview girls win 69-27

It simply wasn’t pretty.

That’s what happens when the conference’s best team takes on one of the teams at the bottom.

The big problem for East was that Forestview only had nine players. That meant the Lady Jaguars’ starters would play well after they got gotten the lead past 30.

The Lady Jaguars took off from the start and led 18-8 after the first quarter, 31-14 at the half, then exploded in the third quarter (22-4) to lead 55-18 to win 69-27.

It’s tough to take that beating for East which was over and over by the quicker Lady Jaguars in its man-to-man defense.

“I think we could have played them better in a zone or a triangle defense,” said East center Sarah Fleming. “We could have done better if we would have ran our offense better.

Tiffany Finandis had 12 points in the loss that drops East to 5-13, 2-6 in league play.

Forestview’s Mary Hall McArver, K.C. Correll and Marie Gill combined for 52 points to lead the way.

© 2001 Lincoln Times-News  

Terms and Conditions