Harrisburg pulls away for victory against Huron boys

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HURON — After a tough loss to Aberdeen earlier this week, Huron Tiger coach Tim Buddenhagen was looking for some toughness on his team and a willingness to take the ball to the hoop.
Both happened Saturday night - Buddenhagen’s Tigers shot a season-high 25 free throws, and hit 19 of them - while going toe-to-toe with the Harrisburg Tigers, but came up on the short end of a 52-40 decision in ESD boys’ basketball action.
“I don’t want anyone to be ok with losing,” said Buddenhagen, “that a moral victory is enough. That being said, our ‘want to’ was there tonight. Everyone who played tonight showed the competitiveness we worked on building this week.”
Harrisburg, now 6-0, came in averaging just over 67 points per game and was held to its lowest point total of the season in a good defensive effort by Huron, which falls to 2-5.
The teams struggled to find points in the early going, as Harrisburg held a 5-2 lead midway through the first quarter. Huron responded as Kobe Busch hit three-point shots on back-to-back possessions to give the home team an 8-5.
Harrisburg came back immediately, as Nick Hoyt hit a three of his own, igniting a 9-0 run for the visitors. The run was capped by Hunter Headlee, who turned a missed free throw into a quick basket as the time ran out in the quarter, with Harrisburg holding a 14-8 lead.
Huron got a deuce back in the opening seconds on a field goal from Tanner Evers, then Evers scored again to counter a Harrisburg free throw.
Cooper Fryberger came off the Huron bench to score and cut the margin to a single point, at 15-14. After another Harrisburg free throw, Busch hit a pair of free throws to tie the score for the first time since midway through the first quarter.
Busch put Huron back in the lead on its next possession, on two more charity tosses, but Harrisburg knotted the score again on a basket by Michael Curry. A Hoyt basket made it 20-18 as the clock rolled past two minutes in the first half.
The teams traded free throw opportunities over the final moments - Nolan Wiegel and Isaac Carr each hit one-of-two for Huron while Brooks Fuller did the same for Harrisburg, which took a 21-20 lead to the halftime break.
“We really wanted to work with our new offensive look and all-in-all we saw some good things,” Buddenhagen said. “We really wanted to focus on using the shot clock to shorten the game and wanted to get the ball inside more than we had been. I thought we did that well at times tonight.”

Harrisburg scored the first five points of the third quarter, pushing the lead back to six as Chase Altenburg hit from deep and Ace Zorr scored on a lay-in, before Jett McGirr got Huron on the board with a pair of free throws.
After another Zorr basket, Carr converted an old-fashioned three-point play to carve the lead to three, but Hoyt pushed it back to six with another three-pointer.
A Teegan Evers three-pointer countered a basket and free throw by Harrisburg, but Brady VanHolland hit two free throws and then a field goal on consecutive possessions to push the lead to seven points and after trading baskets, Harrisburg held a 38-31 lead heading to the fourth quarter.
“I thought that we played pretty well on defense tonight,” Buddenhagen noted. “Outside of a couple mental errors I thought we did a good job of making Harrisburg work hard for what they got.”
After Altenburg and Busch traded free throws to open the period, Curry scored on an offensive rebound put-back, and VanHolland hit one-of-two from the line for a 10-point Harrisburg lead with just over six minutes remaining in the game.
But Huron responded with a 7-1 run - with all seven points coming from the charity stripe - to cut the lead to four at 44-40 with 3:13 left in the game.
Harrisburg got a free throw from Zorr, and a Huron three on its next possession rimmed out and turned into a pair of Slaughter free throws, and ignited a 5-2 run to closed the game and propel Harrisburg to the win.
Busch led the Huron effort with 18 points, including a 12-for-12 showing at the free throw line, as his inside/outside game was focused in the paint for much of the second half. Carr led the Huron rebounders with six boards.
Hoyt had 12 points and Altenburg added 11 for Harrisburg. Zorr led all rebounders with 10 boards.
“All-in-all I liked our effort tonight,” Buddenhagen said. “Now the bar is set; now we know that we can come out and compete. We’ll work on a couple things on the offense and get ready for Watertown next week.”
Huron is off until Friday, when it travels to Watertown to take on the 3-4 Arrows.

Harrisburg         14  21  38  52
Huron                  8  20  31 42
Harrisburg (6-0): Brady VanHolland 1 3-4 5; Nick Hoyt 4 2-2 12; Brooks Fuller 1 1-3 3; Michael Curry 3 1-2 7; Ace Zorr 2 4-8 8; Chase Altenburg 3 4-6 11; Blair Slaughter 1 2-3 4; Hunter Headlee 1 0-1 2. Totals: 16 17-29 52.
Huron (2-6): Jett McGirr 0 3-4 3; Tanner Evers 2 0-0 4; Teegan Evers 2 0-0 5; Kobe Busch 2 12-12 18; Isaac Carr 1 2-3 4; Sean Flanery 1 0-2 2; Nolan Wiegel 0 1-2 1; Dawson Diede 1 1-2 3; Cooper Fryberger 1 0-0 2. Totals 10 19-25 42.
FG: HA - 16-36 44%; HU - 10-35, 29%. 3-pt FG: HA - 3-12 (Hoyt 2, Altenburg); HU - 3-21 (BUsch 2, Tanner Evers). Rebounds: HA - 29 (Zorr 10); HU - 27 (Carr). TO: HA - 10; HU - 11. Fouls: HA - 21; HU - 24 (Tanner Evers, Teegan Evers, Busch out).

MIKE CARROLL/PLAINSMAN
Huron’s Cooper Fryberger holds the ball on the perimeter as he is guarded by Harrisburg’s Hunter Headlee during their game Saturday at Huron Arena. Huron’s Kobe Busch puts up a shot against Michael Curry of Harrisburg during their game Saturday at Huron Arena.