Deer Lakes gets past Burrell for first section win

By: George Guido
Friday, January 3, 2020 | 11:03 PM

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It took longer for the defending Section 3-3A boys champions to get there, but Deer Lakes reached the section win column for the first time this season Friday night with a 56-45 victory over Burrell.

The Lancers (4-4, 1-2) were led by Jack Hollibaugh’s 20 points and 10 rebounds.

Deer Lakes won the section title outright last season and won two PIAA games for the first time. Since the Lancers lost some strong shooters from last year’s team, Deer Lakes is concentrating on defense thus far.

“They’re playing pretty good defense,” coach Terence Parham said of his team. “”Other than OLSH putting up 80 on us, that was out of the norm for us. But tonight, I knew with an A-K rival game, you throw the records out, and Burrell showed why.”

The Bucs (1-9, 1-3), struggling with an inexperienced, revamped team, committed five turnovers in the first five minutes of the game before finally finding the range.

“We’re working hard in practice and we’re getting better,” said Bucs first-year coach Mike Fantuzzo. “But we’re still making those mistakes that young teams make. We’re seeing some signs of improvement, but it’s hard to get up on a good team if you’re making mistakes over and over.”

Said Parham: “You can tell that they believe in their coach. A one-victory team doesn’t play that hard if they don’t believe what the coach is preaching. Fortunately, we were able to make enough plays in certain instances.”

The Bucs actually led for a brief time, finishing the first quarter with an 8-0 run. A pair of free throws by Tesean Degore and a 3-pointer by Brandon Coury at the buzzer put Burrell in front, 13-9.

But Hollibaugh batted the ball out of a Burrell player’s hands and passed to Zac Herbinko to give the Lancers the lead for good, 16-15, with 5 minutes, 27 seconds to go in the half.

The Deer Lakes defense held the Bucs to a lone point in the final 6:14 of the half en route to a 28-16 advantage at intermission.

Burrell tried to get back into it during the third period, slicing the Lancers’ lead to 32-27 on a 3-pointer by Donavan Callahan with 1:21 left.

But Deer Lakes answered with a 3-pointer by A.J. Fletcher and soon had the lead back up to double digits.

Burrell got down by seven early in the fourth quarter, but a 3-pointer by Hollibaugh put Deer Lakes on its way to the win.

“We missed 26 shots in the first half,” Parham said. “To get the one that A.J. did was clutch and then Jack, I was going to pull him. We wanted to work shots. It was one of those, ‘No, no, no, yeah,’ shots.

A bright spot for the Bucs was sophomore Coury’s 14-point night.

“I just told him to keep getting more aggressive,” Fantuzzo said. “He keeps passing up shots, but he’s starting to play better and get more confidence in himself.”

Aris Hasley had 13 points and seven rebounds for the Lancers. Zac Herbinko was in foul trouble much of the night and standout freshman Bryce Robson was ill and did not dress.

Luke Fisher pulled down nine rebounds for the Bucs.

Tags: Burrell, Deer Lakes