Thursday night's Rising Sun-Elkton boys basketball game was a tale of two halves. For the Tigers, the first 16 minutes were the best of halves, but the final two quarters were the worst of halves. Elkton overcame a 12-point deficit by outscoring Rising Sun 59-30 in the second half and topped the Tigers 81-64. Rising Sun led 34-22 at the break and scored the first basket of the third quarter. It was all Elkton after that. The Elks bewildered the Tigers with a trapping defense which created numerous turnovers and led to a bunch of easy buckets. Elkton embarked on a 16-0 spurt capped by a dunk from Javon McGriff to take a 38-36 edge before the Tigers' Austin Newby hit a short baseline jumper to stem the tide. "It was too many mistakes," Rising Sun coach Don Passenant said. "We kind of went backwards to where we were at the beginning of the season when we folded under pressure, and we can't do that. If we want to get up to the next level, if we want to get to regionals, we can't play like we did [Thursday night]. Everybody knows that. There was a lot of poor passing, then trying to force the issue. We just played right into their hands." Rising Sun recovered to lead by as many as three points but Elkton led 48-46 entering the fourth quarter. The visitors broke the game open by tallying the first eight points of the period and never led by less than eight the rest of the way. The Tigers committed 32 turnovers (one per minute), with many coming on crosscourt passes while trying to navigate the Elkton trap. "You're supposed to look to the middle," said Passenant. "They weren't even set up properly. I told them three times how to set up. I think we had it easy [the last] couple games. I don't know what it was because we were breaking presses well. But when it came time to really do what you're supposed to do, it didn't happen. It shouldn't be lob pass across. You're supposed to look ahead. It's got to be good passes across. So, it's just a lot of mistakes. I felt like calling a timeout and having a practice." The Tigers trailed 19-16 after the opening eight minutes before outscoring the Elks 18-3 in the second quarter. Rising Sun seemed to have momentum on its side, but the second half was a much different story. "They were pretty fired up in the locker room [after] getting the lead," Passenant said of his squad. "Elkton, of course, played a heck of a second half. They got fired up and we didn't meet that. We didn't get up to that level." The coach said the Tigers' struggles weren't caused by lack of effort. "I think we played hard," said Passenant. "It's the mistakes. It's not as much the intensity but the mistakes that they make. You can play your butt off but if you're not where you're supposed to be, it's not going to work. This is a good experience for them. We won four games in a row and we came up against a really good team. You learn from it. Everybody will learn from it and they'll get better." Noah Juergens paced Rising Sun with 14 points. Casey Baker added 12. Jake Keane had two big blocks in the second quarter and managed 10 points despite being saddled with foul trouble. Comments are closed.
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