Posted on 01 March 2009 by .
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| Frankfort’s Stevie Loveless tallied a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. |
Reprinted courtesy of:
Frankfort Times
By Phil Friend
Published: Saturday, February 28, 2009 6:09 AM EST
LIZTON — With Stevie Loveless struggling from the field Friday night
against Tri-West, Frankfort turned to Troy Porter to pick up the
scoring slack.
And pick it up he did.
The junior
scored a career-high 26 points, hitting 8 of 9 shots and 4 of 5 3-point
attempts as the Hot Dogs defeated Tri-West, 60-40.
Most
important for Frankfort, however, is the fact it clinched a three-way
tie for the Sagamore Athletic Conference championship with the victory.
“It felt like everything was going in tonight,” Porter said. “I was
getting open shots and my teammates were getting me open and I was just
knocking them down like I was supposed to.
“(Winning the conference title) feels great but a sectional championship would be better.”
With the win, the Hot Dogs won their first SAC title since the 2000-01 season.
“Sometimes I get nervous about stuff like that,” Frankfort coach Jason
Good said. “You never know how the kids are going to come out and react
and understand how big of a game this is for us. I was really happy
about the way we came out and played. Our top eight guys really tried
to dominate the whole game.”
Porter came out on fire in the
first quarter, hitting his first four shots — two of them being
3-pointers — as Frankfort went on a 14-2 run to grab a 19-7 lead early
in the second quarter.
Although Porter didn’t attempt any
shots in the second quarter, he came out of the break firing, hitting
two 3-pointers and two free throws to push Frankfort’s lead to 36-16
with five minutes remaining in the period.
“I told them at halftime if I had a teammate that hasn’t missed yet,
I’d try to pass it to him because I like winning,” Good said. “We did a
much better job of finding him. Stevie really struggled from the field
and I thought our other guys played really well. It’s the best game
we’ve played in awhile; right time to be playing well.”
Frankfort finished the game 17 of 38 from the field and hit 21 of 24 free throws.
The Hot Dogs’ defense also played stellar, holding Tri-West players
Randall Lowe and Sam Groth well below their season averages. Lowe, who
averages more than 19 points per game, finished with 10 points and
Groth had nine.
“(Lowe) only got eight shots but that’s on
me as a coach,” Tri-West coach Eric Rauch said. “We don’t say, so and
so is going to get so many shots in a game. I have confidence in all of
our guys shooting. I thought we had a chance to do that early and stay
in the game and we didn’t make easy shots.”
Frankfort
outscored Tri-West, 17-7 in the third to push its lead to 43-21 at the
end of the stanza. The Hot Dogs’ biggest lead of the game was 28 on
three occasions — 49-21, 51-23 and 53-25.
Loveless only hit
2 of 13 field goals and finished with 11 points. But the senior kept
his double-double streak alive with 10 rebounds.
“People
guard him really hard and try to stop him from scoring,” Good said.
“Maybe he’s forcing it a little bit and feels like he has to score. I
don’t care if he scored five or 50 as long as we’re getting good shots
and in the second half, he relaxed and we made shots.”
Frankfort 60, Tri-West 40
At Tri-West
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Frankfort 17 9 17 17 — 60
Tri-West 7 7 7 19 — 40
GAME STATISTICS
Frankfort (15-6) 60
Porter
8-9 6-6 26, Shirar 1-3 0-0 3, Loveless 2-13 7-10 11, Sheets 0-2 0-0 0,
Stuard 1-1 0-0 2, Spears 2-5 4-4 8, Hall 3-3 0-0 6, Svoboda 0-1 2-2 2,
Moore 0-0 2-2 2, Sharp 0-1 0-0 0, Eason 0-0 0-0 0, Acevedo 0-0 0-0 0.
Totals: 17-38 21-24 60.
Tri-West (11-10) 40
Pfeifer 1-3
0-0 2, Call 0-0 5-6 5, Skudrovskis 0-1 0-0 0, Allen 2-5 0-0 4, Groth
3-11 3-4 9, McVicker 0-3 0-0 0, Lowe 4-9 2-4 10, Joe Pierle 0-3 0-0 0,
Hendershot 0-2 1-2 1, Waite 3-3 0-1 6, Cheatum 0-1 0-0 0, Alvernaz 0-0
0-0 0, Jos. Pierle 1-1 0-0 3. Totals: 14-42 11-17 40.
3-point
field goals: F 5-9 (Porter 4-5, Shirar 1-1, Loveless 0-2, Sheets 0-1),
TW 1-11 (Jos. Pierle 1-1, Lowe 0-3, Hendershot 0-2, Joe Pierle 0-2,
Pfeifer 0-1, Cheatum 0-1, McVicker 0-1). Rebounds: F 34 (Loveless 10),
W 18 (Skudrovskis, McVicker, Groth 4). Assists: F 13 (Spears 4), TW 4
(Alvernaz, Hendershot, Joe Pierle, Groth 1). Steals: F 6 (Porter 3), TW
8 (8 players with 1 each). Blocks: F 4 (Loveless 2), TW 0. Turnovers: F
12, TW 10. Total fouls: F 14, TW 16. Fouled out: None.
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