Kings vs. Mason Tuesday, December 15 2009

By Jackson Schueler

Mason traveled to Kings and brought a lot of intensity to the KHS Gym.  The Kings freshman team matched their intensity and brought a great effort on both sides of the floor to make for an outstanding game that saw many lead changes. 

The opening quarter was close and intense and set the tone for the rest of the game.  Mason lead 10 to 6 after the first quarter. The second quarter began with Nick Jenkins, Nick Wolfe, Nathan Pucke, Max Lerer, and David Hare. Kings got momentum after a Brent Mathias steal, which Austin Copeland took and drained a shot from the elbow. The score was fourteen to thirteen Kings at the end of the half.

The second half was very extreme and intense with the score bouncing back and forth, like a tug of war. Momentum was boosted for Kings when Brent Mathias tipped the ball out of Mason # 11’s hands and into the hands of Austin Copeland. Austin drew the defenses attention before passing to Ryan Anthony who was fouled on the play. He missed his first free throw but made his second which tied Kings up with Mason. Later in the third, a foul and a technical on Coach McClung were called on Kings handing the momentum to Mason. Mason took advantage and made 3 of 5 from the line.  At the end of the third the score was twenty three to twenty four with Mason leading. In the beginning of the fourth, Kings brought the game to tie at twenty five with two minutes left in the game. With one minute and five seconds Mason made four-footer. Max Lerer was later fouled and made one of the two shots.  Kings was now in a position to score quickly with time winding down.  Kings was forced to foul to stop the clock and Mason took advantage of it making their free throws down the stretch.  Another Mason player was fouled which put Mason up by five with about thirty seconds left.  Mason won the game with a final score of thirty one to twenty six.

Nathan Pucke led the Knights with eight points, Max Lerer had four points, Austin Copeland had six points, Brent Mathias had six, and Ryan Anthony chipped in two.

After the game I met with Coach McClung and he told me “Kings had a great effort both on offense and defense. Mason just made a couple more shots. We had some good looks but could not put the ball in the bucket, missing a couple of bunnies around the rim.  Down the stretch, they were very good from the free throw line making 10 of 14 shots.  We were 4 for 9 from the line.  Mason had a great defensive stand in the fourth quarter and held us to only three points.”