BELPRE -Playing well in spurts, a more deliberate Belpre team used a 14-0 fourth-quarter run to put away a pesky Southern squad as the host Golden Eagles pulled even on the season at 3-3 Friday night with a 60-50 TVC Hocking Division boys basketball victory over the Tornadoes.
Belpre had led by double-digit margins in the first, third and fourth quarters, but found itself up just 46-42 with 4:52 to play.
That's when the Golden Eagles, now 3-2 in the TVC Hocking, got on a scoring spurt, fueled by Austin Forshey with seven points - half the run -to roll out to a 60-42 advantage with only 36.6 seconds remaining.
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Photo by Steve Hemmelgarn
Belpre head coach Jordan Thornhill speaks to his team during a timeout during Friday night’s game against Southern. The Golden Eagles won, 60-50.
Southern (3-3) tallied the game's last eight points on a pair of treys and a basket at the final buzzer, but the outcome was decided on Belpre's big run that started with a Forshey trey, one of his four 3-balls on the night.
Then came Nick Therriault feeding Bryce Pittenger down deep in the lane for a hoop at 2:00 and two free throws each by Forshey, Pittenger and Dakota Hoffman before Forshey added two more freebies on a technical foul on the Southern head coach before Brennen Ferrell tacked on the 14th straight Belpre point from the foul line.
Forshey and Pittenger, with eight each, scored all but one of their team's points in the opening period as Belpre jumped out to a 17-5 lead after the initial eight minutes of action.
But Southern came all the way back -and then some -in the second stanza to take the lead at 24-22 with 1:23 to go until halftime. The Golden Eagles, though, scored the final seven points in the half as Therriault drove to the baseline for a bucket and then dropped in a baseline jumper before Sam Petty's three-point play made the count 29-24 in Belpre's favor at intermission.
However after Belpre built up leads of 42-32 in the third and 46-36 with 5:39 to play in the fourth, Trenton Deem, Zac Beegle and Casey Pickens scored consecutively to narrow the deficit to only four.
Forshey led all point-producers in the game with 18, followed on the Belpre side by Pittenger with 14, Therriault with 10 and Hoffman with nine. Southern was paced Tristen Wolfe with 12 and Deem with 11.
''Forshey gave us a big game tonight, and Petty really did a great job defensively,'' said Belpre head coach Jordan Thornhill.
