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Lions get best of Mifflin County boys

Huskies have moments, but fall in the end

Sentinel photo by MATT STRICKER
Mifflin County’s Noah Wright, right, attempts a shot over Red Lion defender Randy Fizer Friday in Lewistown.

LEWISTOWN — When a first-year coach tries to install a new system and change a culture there are going to be growing pains.

Mifflin County boys basketball coach Scott Gaffey had an up-and-down debut with the Huskies falling 58-40 to Red Lion in the season opener Friday night at the Husky gym.

“This is our first year with this coaching staff and these players. For us to come out the first game of the year, I don’t know if we are ready to beat a team like Red Lion,” Gaffey said. “I think if we see them again in January or February, a couple months down the road, we can beat a team like that.”

The Lions (1-0) had four players hit for double figures — Randy Fizer led the way with 14, Phil Douglass had 12 and Devante Dennis and A.J. Virata collected 11 points each.

Noah Wright led the Huskies with 13 points while Isaiah Collins added six rebounds.

“I thought our guys competed well. We came out hot to start the game. We just had too many turnovers for touchdowns in the beginning,” Gaffey said. “In the second half, we cut down on those and were able to work our way back into the game. I’m proud of our guys for coming out strong in the second half.”

Mifflin County, trailing 33-18 at the break, found new life in the third quarter thanks to nine points from Xavier Vega. The Huskies won the quarter 16-8 to get in striking distance of Red Lion at 41-34.

“We told them we had to come out and play better. We needed to get some backdoors and attack the basket,” Gaffey said. “Our guys responded well to what we told them at halftime and came out and executed better in the second half. We gave ourselves a chance to win. We told them we needed to get it down to eight entering the fourth quarter and we got it down to seven.”

The Lions broke the game open with a 17-6 fourth quarter blitz with Fizer and Douglass combining for 13 points. Mifflin County (0-1) shot 2-for-9 in the final frame. The Huskies were dismal from the charity stripe, shooting 50 percent (7-for-14).

“We’re going to be shooting more foul shots in practice to say the least. That leads to us only scoring 40 points when we miss those chippies,” Gaffey said. “Again, when you cut down on those turnovers for touchdowns, we find ourselves right back in the game.”

Mifflin County started the game strong but turnovers allowed the Lions to go on a 7-3 run to end the first quarter and give the visitors the 17-13 advantage. The turnovers allowed the snowball to grow even larger as the Red Lion, thanks to nine points from Dennis, won the frame 16-5 to take a 15-point lead into the break.

Another disadvantage was on the glass where the Lions out-rebounded the Huskies 17-6 in the first half.

“We had 12 turnovers in the first half and our goal was to be under 10. We needed to find a way to clean that up and we did in the second half,” Gaffey said. “The rebounding was bad. We got killed on the boards in the first half. We had six rebounds total in the first half. In the second half, we didn’t rebound great but we did enough to keep us in the game.”

The Huskies played well defensively, forcing 11 Lion turnovers and holding them under 60. Offensively, they need to take higher percentage shots and score more — a problem area for Mifflin County last season.

“Our defensive intensity was good in the second half and our man-to-man defense was better than we expected it to be. Our defense was pretty good,” Gaffey said. “The guys played hard. We executed five-man early on in our offense. We have to find a way to score more points and get more shots.”

Mifflin County lost the JV game 53-39. Tyler Metz led the Huskies with 11 points.

Red Lion 58, Mifflin County 40

RED LION

Randy Fizer 5 3-5 14, Phil Douglass 5 2-2 12, Zak Keener 2 4-5 8, Davante Dennis 3 5-8 11, AJ Virata 5 0-0 11, Jared Bodisch 1 0-0 2. Totals: 21 14-20 58.

3-point goals: Douglass 3, Virata, Fizer.

MIFFLIN COUNTY

Noah Wright 4 5-9 13, Tyreen Smalley 2 1-3 5, Eric Shilling 2 0-0 5, Isaiah Collins 1 0-0 3, Xavier Vega 4 0-0 9, Jayden Jackson 1 1-2 3, Tyler Metz 1 0-0 2. Totals: 17 7-14 40.

3-point goals: Shilling, Collins, Vega.

Did not score: Connor Cherry, Julian Jackson, Jace Shoemaker.

Score by quarters

Red Lion 17-16-8-17 – 58

Mifflin County 13-5-16-6 – 40

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