Big second half lifts Deer Lakes boys past Burrell, gives Lancers 3-0 section mark

By: HSSN Staff
Friday, January 4, 2019 | 11:33 PM

It was a tale of two halves Friday night at Burrell.

The Bucs led by 10 points at the half and appeared to be in control when Andrew Bigler’s putback gave Burrell a 12-point cushion.

But the Lancers surged, put on an aggressive press and were solid from the free-throw line late to post a 49-40 victory over Burrell in a Section 3-3A matchup.

Jared Coulton came off the bench to ignite a 20-3 surge with a 3-pointer, and Deer Lakes was on its way.

Colton and Brad Perrotte had 15 points each as the Lancers moved to 3-0 in section play for the first time since the 1991-92 season. Deer Lakes is 6-3 overall.

Lancers coach Terence Parham pulled no verbal punches with his halftime talk.

“There was a lot of bleepin’ out at halftime, I’ve got to be honest,” Parham said with a laugh. “It’s not something you want to do at halftime, but I felt it was something that was needed. Didn’t know how it would be taken. They could take it and say coach was sending a message, or we came out here not ready to play and it was one of those games.”

Fortunately for Deer Lakes, it was the former reaction as the Lancers forced nine Burrell turnovers in the first 10 minutes-plus of the second half.

“I said to the team, ‘You’re going to show us what kind of mettle you’re made of right now,’ ” Parham said. “I think our guys forgot Burrell’s still the defending section champs, at home, and they had a winning section record coming into the game.”

Said Colton, “After the first half and seeing all the mistakes we made, we kind of regrouped and actually executed.”

Deer Lakes employed a press and got the Bucs out of their offense.

“When teams make us make decisions instead of executing our game plan, that’s when we tend to struggle a little bit,” Burrell coach Shawn Bennis said. “I give Deer Lakes credit. They came out and played extremely hard in the second half. Their changing up on defense sort of hurt us tonight.”

Said Parham: “I didn’t think we were adjusting to our press the way we did it in practice. My coach (Albie) Fletcher handles the press and went over everything, and I felt like the kids were disrespecting him by not rotating the way he worked on it. We regrouped and had active hands.”

Burrell went 9 minutes, 24 seconds without a field goal until Bigler scored after Deer Lakes had taken a 43-31 lead on Zac Herbinko’s two free throws.

Kadlick had 10 points and six rebounds for the Lancers.

Burrell is 2-2, 3-7.

“We’re still 2-2, and I think this section’s wide open,” Bennis said. “We’re off till Friday. I told them we’re going to get into the gym and keep developing our bench so we can give our guys some rest.”

Burrell junior Seth Fischbach had a solid game with 16 points, including four 3-pointers. Bigler added 12.

Deer Lakes made 12 of 16 free throws in the second half.

George Guido is a freelance writer.

Tags: Burrell, Deer Lakes