Bluejays win physical battle with McPherson
Tabor men outlast Bulldogs
in 60-47 wrestling
match to break .500
By RYAN RICHTER
Sports writer
For a good portion of Saturday night's game in Hillsboro between Tabor and the McPherson Bulldogs, the Bluejays were probably wondering whether they were really playing basketball, or competing in the WWE.
Anything seemed to go from a hard thumb to the eyes, or even Andy Brubacher getting blind-sided midway through the second half which left him shaken up.
That's nothing new for the Bulldogs, who seem to have a penchant for rough play.
Even though McPherson's league-leading defense did its job holding the Bluejays (6-5, 3-1 KCAC) a point under what they've been allowing, it lost the war with the Bluejays hanging for a 60-47 victory.
"We try to keep playing fundamental basketball," said Bluejay coach Don Brubacher. "We try to prepare for any style of play so there were times tonight where we did a very good job of handling play when it became very physical.
"It's something that seems to happen quite a lot in our basketball. When a team gets down, the response, the reaction is to try and get the game going their direction so it's becomes substantially more physical."
The Bluejays never trailed at any point in the contest, extending their lead as far as 11 with just under 8:00 left in the first half after Matt Nelson sank a free throw.
While the Bulldogs lead the KCAC in defense, it was the Bluejay defense that harassed them the entire 40:00, yielding McPherson 30 percent on the night and 27 the first half from the floor.
Tabor's ill-advised shooting and offensive execution was nothing to write home about though, converting on just 8-of-22 the first half to grab a 26-18 lead at the break.
The Bluejays virtually had to earn a living at the free throw line where they were 7-for-10 and 17-of-25 for the game.
"I felt we really did not execute substantially better on the offensive end from beginning to end of the game," Brubacher said of the game and the 81-76 loss two days earlier at Southwestern. "We executed really rather nicely the first five to seven minutes of the game, but then we went through a stretch where we really, really struggled on the offensive end of the court.
"We played very poorly and we played with a lack of energy, also."
That was when the Bulldogs used the sputtering Tabor execution to slice the lead down to eight with Chris Nixon converting on the three-point play barely 2:30 into the second half.
But Grant Brubacher buried a three to push the lead back to double digits with the Bulldogs whittling the lead to single-digits once more.
Then the game got rough, particularly in the post where Thor Rooks, Nate Hadacheck, and Lee Gustafson were playing.
Rooks leveled Andy Brubacher, leaving him sprawling on the court after a drive to the bucket. Andy returned late in the game.
Sensing the game still in jeopardy for Tabor, Brad Gattis rose to the occasion, scoring seven straight points to give the Bluejays a 47-30 lead with 7:45 left.
Gattis was the only Bluejay to score in double figures with a game-high 15 points amidst hauling in five rebounds.
Chris Metcalf pulled down a team-high seven rebounds before fouling out with around 5:00 left to help Tabor tie McPherson at 34 in battling for boards.
The Bulldogs used their physical play to double Tabor over in second chance points, 14-7, something very glaring to Don Brubacher.
"You name one aspect of the game I was least pleased with it was our offensive rebounding," he said. "It's not at all unusual we had no one on the offensive glass, no one.
"That was not at all unusual, and it was very typical where we have only one. We made a very, very poor effort with our offensive rebounding."
Already jawing with Bluejay fans, Hadacheck was hit with a technical, sending Tyler Weinbrenner to the foul line where he pushed the lead back to 17.
Pat Miller flushed a free throw with just under 2:00 to go to give Tabor its largest lead of the game, 19, 60-41, before the Bulldogs ended the game on the 6-0 run.
After a near-three week break, the Bluejays return to action Dec. 30 in the weekend's Tabor Classic, facing the Northwest Oklahoma State Rangers.
