Junior High Boys Basketball A-Team Wins Two Last Week, Move To 5-1, On The Season (02/18/14)

(By Coach Jesse Quinn)

Our Clarion Junior High Team A-Team traveled to Cranberry, on Monday, February 10th, to take on the Berries. They posted their fourth win of the season, defeating the Berries 39-30.

The offensive leaders for the game were Cameron Craig who poured in 12 points for us and Christian Smith who dumped in ten.

Our goal on the season is to win every quarter. This game, we were able to win 3 of the 4 quarters, scoring 13 points in the first, 10 in the second and third, but only mustered 7 in the final quarter.

Even though we have had two young men, who primarily lead the team each game in scoring, we have a nice balance of points coming from a number of different players. Nick Cherico did a nice job on the boards and was able to score 7 points for us. Spencer Miller added 5, while Zach Bauer put in 3 and Jimmy Smathers 2 points respectively.

Some of the boys may not show up in the score book with points, but they do so many other things that enable our team to be successful. It helps some of the boys to get the points they do. It is a very unselfish team all around! Cam Hearst and Jimmy Smathers along with Spencer Miller and others do a terrific job on defense! They come up with loose balls on the floor, and make great reads and anticipate well to get a steal and push the ball up the floor with a quick
pass. They might not have scored the points, but they made the play that enabled a teammate to score.

This is something that is very special to be a part of as a coach and I truly appreciate their efforts day in and day out.

Up next for the Bobcats, the Union Knights.

On Wednesday, February 12th, the Bobcats hosted the Union Golden Knights and upped their record to 5-1 on the season with a 46-21 victory.

Getting back to the goal, to win every quarter, the A-Team did just that,  putting up 16 points in the first and 11  points in the second quarter to take a 27-11 halftime lead. What was impressive was the way they held the Knights to just 4 points in the second quarter and only 3 points in the third.

I had mentioned before about the team being unselfish and our scorebook definitely reflected that. Cam Craig was the high scorer with 12 points followed closely by Christian Smith, who added 9 points. He was followed very closely by Jimmy Smathers and Zach Bauer, who each put in 8 points for us. It makes things very tough on our opponents to decide who they are going to try to take away when we have four boys almost scoring in double digits.

Cam Hearst was able to chip in 3 points, with Nick Cherico, Jacob Selker, and Austin Hummell all adding two points each.

As their coach, I can’t say enough about the way these boys handle themselves on the floor.  We are able to throw a number of different defenses at a team and really keep them off balance on offense. We also have a number of different offensive set plays to run, as well as the ability to outlet and run the court. We can always get better and the boys know it. Each of them puts a good deal of pressure on himself to perform at a high level.

With each game, we must get better, all the while having fun doing it. They are reminded of the reasons we are here… first to work on skills/and the game, second to compete at the highest level possible, and third to have fun in the process. These boys are creating memories. Some are funny, some are more serious, but they are memories none-the-less. I consider myself very fortunate that I have the opportunity to play a small part in that.

(Thanks to Coach Quinn for this article.)