Boy’s Basketball: Oilers out muscle junior Chargers

by Jason Wolverton

Justin Kolesar scored 18 points and Jonathon McCann added 14 Tuesday as the Mount Pleasant junior varsity basketball team defeated Midland Dow 55-44 at H.H. Dow High School.

The Oilers capitalized on their height advantage throughout the majority of the first half and held off a late surge to drop the Chargers to 8-9 on the season.

“Mount Pleasant played very hard and they were real physical and it took us awhile to adjust to it,” said Dow coach Doug Bradford. “With about four minutes left in the second quarter we adjusted to the style of play and then we kind of played even.”

Things weren’t very even in the first half, though, when Mount Pleasant went on a 10-2 run midway through the opening quarter to take a 16-6 lead. Only David Fennell’s 3-point play at the buzzer kept the Oilers’ from taking a double-digit lead into the second.

But it didn’t get much better from there as Mount Pleasant went on a 7-0 run to take a 15-point lead. Free throws from Shaun Lukins, Paul Martin, and Jordan Herman cut the lead back to 28-18 at the half.

“Mount Pleasant is bigger in size and strength, “Bradford said. “My inside guys can be pretty physical, but my guards aren’t really big. I think the size of the guards hurt us a little bit.”

Kolesar opened the third quarter with a three to extend the lead, but the Chargers went on a run after that. Dow outscored Mount Pleasant 14-7 the rest of the quarter, highlighted by another Fennell buzzer-beater that cut the deficit to six heading into the final eight minutes.

Fennell converted a layup to begin the fourth to make it a four-point game, but the Chargers would get no closer. The Oilers put the game away with about three minutes to go when a technical foul was called on the Chargers. Kolesar hit both free throws and the Oilers scored off an offensive rebound to make it 52-39.

Adam Pinney hit a shot as the fourth quarter was winding down to close out the scoring for both teams.

Bradford said afterwards that the Chargers were hurt by their inability to get anything going in the transition game, and that they couldn’t really put too much pressure on Mount Pleasant because of their offensive struggles.

“Usually in a game like that you need to get some transition baskets and we just couldn’t get that,” he said. “We tried pressing a little bit, but you have to score to press and we just couldn’t get it going.”

Fennell led the Chargers with a team-high 12 points. Adam Mantle had seven, while Lukins and Richard Crampton had six.

Dow will return to action Friday when they host Heritage. Game time is scheduled for 6 p.m.

For more photos from Tuesday’s game click on “Photo slideshow” in the top right corner of this article.

Photos by Jason Wolverton