Lampeter-Strasburg

I regress a few years back.  Coach Butt spoke in practice about adversity and Austin Musser (a freshman or sophomore at the time) gave a blank stare and asked what adversity meant.  Saturday afternoon would provide the senior guard and his teammates with a great example of facing adversity in the game of basketball.

Section leading, Lampeter-Strasburg, entered the Indian Dome Saturday morning looking to end the Indians' league playoff hopes.  The teams met earlier in the season and LS stormed out of the gates to a 14-3 lead.  The Indians clawed back into the game getting within 2 points with 4 seconds left.  An extremely controversial call (check the film) ended the hopes of a Donegal comeback.

Fast forward several weeks and it was immediately evident that hand-checking was an officiating focus and the newest lesson on adversity was about to begin.  LS won the jump ball and began the game by drawing three defensive fouls on the first possession.  After the next LS possession, both senior guards, Austin and Drake Brumfield, found themselves watching the action from the bench with two fouls each.  Soon thereafter, sophomore, Dylan Houseal, joined the seniors with two fouls.  Less than three minutes into the game, LS would shoot free-throws the remainder of the half.  To the credit of the officials, both coaches, and the fans were begging for the chance to watch the teams play.

Aside from the foul situation and two senior guards sidelined, Donegal stormed out to a 9 point first quarter and a 33-25 halftime lead.  The halftime score prompted Big Mike to comment, "66-50 would be nice."  Little did he know, after taking a sizable lead to the locker room, the Indians would never look back en route to a 70-52 victory over the Section 3 leaders.

Jon Heisey (14 pts) hit a three pointer to begin the scoring for the Indians.  He would add two off of a very aggressive drive to the hoop and later knocked down a couple more treys.  In addition to Jon's offensive outburst, Jaime Colon was the game's high scorer with 18 points and Ben Shenandoah chipped in 11. 

The bench scoring was huge for us.  The foul trouble against a high quality opponent may have spelled disaster for Donegal, but the Indians overcame the adversity and shocked the section leaders. 

The Indians will look to keep their playoff hopes alive Monday night as they travel to Northern Lebanon.