Dry Spell Dooms Charger Boys at Madrid; Lose 68-60

When James Naismith nailed that first peach basket to the wall of the YMCA in Springfield, Mass. in 1901 and told his students to throw the soccer ball into the basket, he had invented a game that still involves throwing--today we call it shooting--a ball into a basket. If a team is unable to do that with some consistency, it will likely not be very successful.

Unfortunately that is just what the ACGC boys' basketball team experienced last Tuesday in Madrid when the Chargers went for nearly a quarter without scoring a field goal. When Ben Marsh scored with 3:23 remaining in the third quarter it gave the Chargers a one point lead at 35-34. It was their last lead of the game and their last field goal for over seven minutes.

ACGC did not score another field goal (a Miles Kading three pointer) until the clock showed 4:06 remaining in the game--a drought that lasted for seven minutes and seventeen seconds. Meanwhile, the Tigers went on a 20-5 run to give them a 54-40 lead before Kading hit his trey.

Up until the dry run the game had been close throughout. The Chargers led after the first quarter 12-10 thanks to four for nine shooting from beyond the arc. The score was knotted at halftime 28-28, but ACGC was already experiencing problems with finding the peach basket. Unofficial stats indicate the Chargers were nine for twenty seven in the first half for 33%. Six of the nine scores were three pointers.

The beginning of the second half was taken from the same page--neither team could break away and ACGC led 35-34 before the Charger guns went silent. Madrid went seven for twelve from the floor during the Charger dry spell, while ACGC missed all eight of its field goal attempts and never recovered from the drought.

ACGC had seventeen more shot attempts than the Tigers--55 to 38, but the hosts connected on 24 of the 38 for 63% while the visitors were 18 of 56 for 32%. Madrid also won the battle from the free throw line, hitting 18 charity tosses to the Chargers' 13. Over half of the Charger points came from beyond the arc--11 makes for 33 points. ACGC outscored Madrid from three point land 33-6.

The Kading brothers led the Chargers in scoring with Eli scoring 17 and Miles coming up with 12. Brock Litter came off the bench and hit three treys and finished with 11 points. Lucas Marsh led in rebounding with 7, and along with Eli dished out 3 assists. The team had only 3 steals with no one having more than 1.

The loss snaps a five gave win streak for the Chargers and leaves the team with an 8-3 record overall and a 5-3 mark in WCAC play.

Score by quarter:

ACGC 12 16 11 21--60

Madrid 10 18 13 27--68

Individual statistics: (TP-REB-ASSTS-STLS) EKading (17-4-3-1) BMarsh (5-4-1-0) Crawford (4-5-1-1) LMarsh (5-7-3-1) MKading (12-1-1-1) Wardyn (6-0-1-0) Rogers (0-0-0-0) Littler (11-5-1-0)

Kunkle (0-0-0-0)