It was fitting it happened on Groundhog Day. Like Bill Murray's character in the popular movie, the Perryville boys basketball team experienced déja vu Tuesday night, February 2. The Panthers engineered another comeback from an early double-digit deficit to top North East Trailing 16-2, the Panthers rallied for a 42-37 triumph over the visiting Indians. Nick Roberts started the comeback with a basket and Tyleke Johnson knocked down a three-pointer to trim the deficit down to 16-7 at the end of the first quarter. Perryville then scored the first six points of the second quarter to complete an 11-0 run. North East led 18-15 at halftime and 28-27 late in the third quarter. With the clock winding down, Johnson knocked the ball away from North East player near midcourt. Roberts picked up the ball and buried the long three-pointer to give Perryville its first lead. "We came down and got a basket and we were just trying to maintain defensive pressure because the shots were not really falling for us," Roberts said. "Tyleke made a great defensive play and got the ball loose at halfcourt. It happened to dribble over to me and I picked it up and launched it and it ended up going in. It was a real momentum swing for us. It really helped us out going into the fourth quarter." The Indians briefly regained the lead early in the fourth quarter before a three-pointer by Dennis Johnson put the Panthers ahead for good. Johnson made another big play later in the quarter. He slid to save the ball from going out of bounds and threw it to Roberts. Roberts found Dominic Gugliotta alone underneath the basket and he scored to make it 40-34 with 1:34 remaining. Tyleke Johnson paced Perryville with 11 points. Roberts recorded nine, Gugliotta added seven, and Dennis Johnson supplied six. In its previous game Friday, January 29, the Panthers fell behind Rising Sun 18-0 before bouncing back to win. Both Roberts and coach Charles Givens Sr. are at a loss to explain why Perryville starts so slowly. "I have no clue," said Roberts. "Like coach told us in the locker room, we have to start every game like we're finishing. We're playing really well in the second half and we just need to keep that same intensity and carry it throughout the whole game and play like that all the time." Said Givens: "They come out and play lethargic. We said before we left the locker room that the kids needed to come out and start scoring early in the game, but it wasn't the case again. But we fought back, luckily. Somebody must be on our side. We came back. Give them credit. It's the second game they didn't die. They just plugged away and plugged away. And I give them credit because we only have seven ballplayers. It's not easy to make decisions and do things on the floor with that many…You ask them to do a lot of sacrificing." Comments are closed.
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