On Jan. 7, the State College Boys Basketball Team came up short against the Cumberland Valley Eagles. The team ended up losing 52-31 against the Eagles after an offense-driven second half.
The Little Lions got off to a slow start by only putting up three points in the first quarter. Luckily for them, Cumberland Valley only put up nine. The slow start wouldn’t get any better in the second quarter.
State High only put up seven more in the second quarter, and Cumberland Valley matched their first quarter performance by putting up another nine points. At halftime, the score was an eight point difference, 18-10 Eagles.
“They play like a two, three match up [zone], and when you shoot like me they stay attached, and you can’t really get open,” senior Reed Melvin said.
The third quarter was the highest-scoring quarter of the game. State College put up 13, but Cumberland Valley outstripped them with 16.
As State College was trying to rally a comeback, Cumberland Valley kept tacking on more points. They scored 18 points in the fourth quarter and eventually the game was out of reach. State College made a valiant effort to try and get some more offense going but only came up with eight and the night concluded in a loss.
Brian Scholly, State College’s head coach detailed the loss from his point of view.
“It was a good measuring stick game for us in that they’re the defending league champ. [Thye have] a lot of pieces from that championship team back, they were better than us tonight. We got to learn the lessons in terms of how we need to run offense and how we need to be physical, work for the shots that we need to try to find. And I thought we settled for what they wanted to give us on the court,” Scholly said.
Senior Charlie Yartz had a solid game, putting up 15 points and leading the Little Lions in scoring. Behind him was junior Michael Powell who had six points off of two three pointers and Melvin who put up five points.
“As we’ve put games on tape now, 11, teams have gotten a feel for what we do, and try to not let us do that,” Scholly said. “So teams have gotten a feel for what Reed does, what Charlie does, and the other guys on the team, and they’re actively working to stop that. So we got to kind of get back from the lab and work through the way teams are guarding us.”
This loss dropped State High to 6-5 on the season, but two recent wins over Altoona and Harrisburg improved the record to 8-6. The Little Lions are back in action on Friday, Jan. 24 when they travel to take on Carlisle.
