Prep Hoops: Bounce Back Attitude
It was a quick turnaround for Harrisburg Wednesday night, which meant they had to have a short memory after suffering a 62-57 overtime loss to Murphysboro Tuesday at the Ernie Bozarth Memorial Tournament.
The Bulldogs returned to the site of their first loss of the season Wednesday, in a 5 p.m. game against Christ Our Rock Lutheran (Centralia), where Harrisburg put 11 players in the scoring columns in a 60-40 win.
As happy as Harrisburg head coach Randy Smithpeters was to see his bunch bounce back, many of his thoughts and sentiments still surrounded Tuesday night's loss to Murphysboro, where Harrisburg missed several point blank shots in regulation to hold on for the win.
"We played really hard (Tuesday) night in a really tough game and just the mental side of a loss like that. … I'm really happy with our performance against Murphysboro and happy with the way we played (Wednesday) against Christ Our Rock Lutheran. We came out against a very experienced Murphysboro ball club, in their gym, at their tournament and really competed and played hard. There might be a reason why we looked a little leg dead tonight. It's early in the season, but against (CORL) our job was to come out and play our game and I felt like we did that. We were able to get guys in the game and that's good for them."
Isaiah Saulsberry had a team-high 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting from the field, while knocking down 3-of-7 3-pointers and going 2-for-2 from the free throw to help pace Harrisburg.
Noah Ferrell, Jordan Bartok and Blake Drue all had eight points for the Bulldogs, while Carson Burtis, Patrick Bittle, Jaden Sigler, Hunter Smith and Dalton Lambert all had three points. Austin Hefner and Riley Barnard all had two points.
Harrisburg shot 22-for-56 from the floor against the Stallions and went 7-of-22 from long range, while knocking down 9-of-16 free throws.
The Bulldogs held CORL to 16-of-38 from the field and 2-of-14 from long range, while the Stallions hit 6-of-7 free throws.
"I'm happy to see us play hard," Smithpeters said. "My worries after Tuesday night's loss was you come in here and starting turning the ball over, getting down early and blow up, get mad and quit and we came in and played hard. We played harder than Murphysboro much of that game and that allowed us to compete. We learned how to defend and screen out and we took care of the ball well enough. If the ball falls right, we probably win that game Tuesday. If we make some better decisions we win that game too."
Michael Dann covers prep and college sports for the Harrisburg Daily Register. Follow him on Twitter: @spydieshooter.
Harrisburg 17 16 13 14
CORL 02 13 13 12
Harrisburg (2-1)
Name FG 3-pt FT Reb PF TP
Burtis 1-1 1-1 0-0 0 1 3
Bittle 1-8 1-5 0-3 1 1 3
Drue 4-6 0-0 0-3 3 0 8
Gould 0-3 0-1 0-0 1 1 0
Sigler 1-3 1-1 0 0 0 3
Smith 1-7 0-5 1-2 2 1 3
Hefner 1-1 0-0 0-0 1 0 2
Saulsberry 6-12 3-7 2-2 4 1 17
Lambert 1-1 1-1 0-0 0 0 3
Bartok 3-3 0-0 2-3 4 0 8
Ferrell 2-6 0-0 4-4 8 0 8
Barnard 1-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 2
Totals 22-56 7-22 9-16 30 9 60
CORL (0-3)
Name FG 3-pt FT Reb PF TP
Britt 3-5 2-4 1-2 3 0 8
Easley 0-1 0-1 0-0 0 0 0
Fleeman 0-1 0-1 0-0 0 3 0
Bent 7-9 0-0 0-0 2 1 14
Briscoe 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Palm 5-7 0-1 3-3 1 3 13
Sparks 1-2 0-0 0-0 1 3 2
Totals 16-38 2-14 6-7 18 12 40
13th Annual Ernie Bozarth Memorial Thanksgiving Tournament
Saturday, November 28
Harrisburg 62, Confluence 54
Carterville 53, Sumner 28
Carterville 62, Confluence 54
Murphysboro 64, Sumner 24
Monday, November 30
Murphysboro 64, CORL 30
Tuesday, Dec. 1
Carterville 60, CORL 33
Murphysboro 62, Harrisburg 57 OT
Wednesday, Dec. 2
Harrisburg 60, CORL 40
Friday, Dec. 4
Carterville vs. Murphysboro, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, Dec. 5
Sumner vs. Harrisburg, 11 a.m.
Confluence vs. CORL, 12:30 p.m.
Sumner vs. CORL, 5 p.m.
Carterville vs. Harrisburg, 6:15 p.m.
Murphysboro vs. Confluence, 7:45 p.m.