43
O’Shaughnessy helps Poland get past Liberty
By Greg Gulas
POLAND
Last season, Braeden O’Shaughnessy was a valuable commodity as the Poland Bulldogs’ sixth man.
Just one game into the season his coach, Ken Grisdale, likes what he sees from him as his starting guard.
O’Shaughnessy had a game-high 21 points and Dan Kramer added 15 as the Bulldogs defeated the Liberty Leopards, 57-54, Friday night in an All-American Conference intra-division contest at the Poland Gymnasium.
It was the season opener for both teams.
“It’s always nice to get that first win, especially at home in front of your fans,” O’Shaughnessy said. “Our defense sets up our offense and it’s up to us to make big shots. We aren’t a very big team so we’ll need to find a way to control the boards. I felt like we did a pretty good job of rebounding tonight.”
Dra Rushton scored Liberty’s first seven points and the Leopards eventually led 22-21 at halftime.
“Our game plan was to stay tough and just keep fighting for the ball,” Kramer said. “We’re smaller so we have to box out and just be ready for the ball. We’re young and we’ll improve, but I thought that we played well overall as a team.”
Six points by O’Shaughnessy and a hoop by Barringer keyed an 8-2 run by Poland at the outset of the second half, allowing the Bulldogs to streak to a 29-24 advantage.
A 6-0 run by Liberty on buckets by Rushton, Andree Bowers and Kevin Code helped the Leopards reqain the lead at 30-29, but a triple by Kramer midway through the session helped Poland pull even, 32-32.
Conner Morse’s triple at 2:53 then gave Poland the lead for good at 35-32, increasing their margin to 39-33 heading to the final period.
“We’ve made a great deal of progress in the four weeks that we have been together. Hopefully we’ll make that much more progress over the next four weeks,” Grisdale said. “We didn’t have a home scrimmage in the pre-season, so I’m happy that our kids got to experience a win on their home court. They’ve worked really hard, but we still have some things that we need to work on and while coaches would like for that to happen overnight, we realize that it will take some time and must be patient.”
Bowers scored 10 of his 14 points in the final period, including two triples as the second of his missiles cut the Poland margin to 52-51 with 40 seconds remaining.
Two free throws each by Mike Diaz and O’Shaughnessy then increased the Poland margin to 56-53 lead with 14 seconds left with each team adding a free throw to round out the scoring.
“It’s a new system and we probably had some first game jitters, but I was extremely happy with the way that our kids played, especially on the road and in a tough environment like that at Poland,” first-year Leopards head coach Chris Kohl said. “Our philosophy is to keep on attacking the basket, go hard and then kick it out for the three. We’re going to win a few games this year.”
Liberty held a 39-30 edge on the boards with Kramer hauling down nine caroms to pace the Bulldogs.