The Rising Sun boys basketball team sprinted out to an early lead over rival North East Friday night. When the Indians edged closer, the Tigers' Jesse Shields provided the finishing kick. Shields scored 10 of his 12 points in the fourth quarter as Rising Sun downed the visiting Indians 42-28 before an enthusiastic and appreciative crowd. The Tigers led by 14 at halftime but North East whittled it down to six (28-22) entering the fourth quarter.
A three-pointer by Shields and a runner by Brennan Martz upped the advantage to 33-22 with 5:23 left. "I looked at the scoreboard and said, 'Ok, we need to turn it on'," Shields said. "I kind of went on my own but it was for the team." Shields then converted a three-point play to make it 36-26 with 3:28 to go. By his own admission, Shields had been struggling to start the season. "It's all mental for me," he said. "It was all mental at the beginning. I was thinking too much. I decided to relax a little, take it down a notch, and just play the game." Shields said the Tigers understood they disappointed their first-year coach Don Passenant with a poor performance in a lopsided loss to Delaware Academy of Public Safety and Security the previous Tuesday. Rising Sun bounced back with an easy win over Tome and followed that up by downing the Indians. "It's all for Coach right now," Shields said. "We felt bad for Coach. He went home (after the D.A.P.S.S. game). He didn't talk to his wife he was mad. So we said, "let's play for Coach' and we started getting our heads straight." Rising Sun scored the game's first eight points and North East never got closer than six the rest of the way. The Tigers led 16-2 at one point, 16-4 at the end of the first quarter, and 24-10 at halftime Kevin Alkinburg led Rising Sun with 15 points and Brennan Martz added seven. "They were fired up," Passenant said of his team. "I was kind of worried that maybe they were too fired up. I told them they were going to play a great game and just to relax. And they did." Comments are closed.
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