Basketball loses tight contests to Sterling
Basketball loses tight contests to Sterling
Both the men and women squads look to bounce back in Hillsboro on Saturday.
On Wednesday night, both Bethel basketball squads took on Sterling. The women fell 64-52 and the men fell 75-67.
The Thresher women started out the game on a nine to zero run forcing the Warriors to make mistakes.
Sterling started to find momentum when Bethel started to sub out players, turning into a 20-7 run for the Warriors, making the score 20-16. Going into the half, Sterling was still ahead 34-30.
Throughout the third quarter, the Warriors led the whole time, sometimes by double digits. The Threshers came out hot in the start of the fourth quarter by scoring the first eight points of the quarter, bringing the score to 52-48 and right back in the game.
Sterling kept gaining momentum and Bethel could never recover, eventually falling 64-52.
“I felt we had our opportunities to win the game,” Head Coach Derrick Pringle said. “We are starting to find our niche and compete at a high level. To battle with such a great program and Sterling showed that we are really close to being a great team this year.”
Sophomore Josie Stupey led the way for the Threshers with 15 points, eight rebounds and two assists.
“Josie has really been playing well for us,” Pringle stated. “She is stepping into her role as a leader on our team and doing all of the little things to help our program be successful.”
The Bethel men and the Sterling men both started out their game slow, having neither team score a basket for the first three and a half minutes of the contest when the Warriors finally scored.
Neither team led by more than two until Sterling scored seven straight to gain a five point lead.
The Threshers stopped that with two threes from Clifford Byrd II and Harper Jonas sandwiched by a Warrior basket, bringing the Sterling lead to just one. Bethel was outscored 14-6 to close out the half.
During halftime, the crowd celebrated a very special person’s birthday: Loren Reusser, who will turn 90 on Friday. The student section was decked out in party hats along with having noise makers and party blowers. Loren was given a card from the student section, a birthday cake, along with a photo of him doing what he loves, cheering on the Threshers, signed by coaches.
“Loren is truly one of a kind,” head men’s coach Jayson Artaz said. “If you really sit back and think of the people that he has impacted throughout his time it is mind blowing. Everyone has a great memory of Loren cheering at games and his positivity and love for Jesus. There’s no way that some of that doesn't rub off on everyone he meets and if we could all strive to be more like him this world and our lives would be in much better places.”
After the break, the Warriors kept their lead and even brought it to eight points at one point. The Threshers eventually went on a 5-0 run to tie the game with 15 minutes left in the second half.
Senior Bryant Mocaby got Bethel their first lead of the half with a big four point play not even a minute later.
Sterling got their lead back at the ten minute point in the game, and the Threshers were never able to recover, even though they kept it within a one or two possession game until the final moments.
“Right now we have to find ways to get easy baskets,” Artaz stated following the game. “We had good stretches defensively where we need to be able to extend or build leads and we haven't been able to consistently score the ball well enough to get things moving in the right direction.”
Byrd II led the way in four categories after returning from injury with 17 points, seven rebounds, five assists along with three steals.
“Having Cliff back is obviously a huge boost for us,” Artaz said. “He brings so much energy to the floor and offensively and defensively he impacts the game in so many ways. As he continues to get even more healthy I look forward to seeing him continue to improve.”
Both Bethel basketball squads will take on rival school Tabor on Saturday with tip-off slated at 5 p.m. for the women and 7 p.m. for the men.
“Tabor is a rivalry game here and we know that we need to play our best basketball so hopefully we can figure some things out on the offensive end to really get some good runs going which has been a staple of this program for the last three or four years,” Artaz said about the upcoming game.