Wildcat Hoops Gives Huntingdon First Loss

BALD EAGLE TOWNSHIP – You hang 90 points on your opponent in a 32-minute high school basketball game and odds are good you’ll come home a winner.

Central Mountain High School did just that Wednesday, putting five players in double-figures on the way to a 90-73 takedown of previously undefeated Huntingdon. The win moved coach Tyler Bardo’s Wildcats to 4-2 and dropped the visiting Bearcats to 6-1.

The Wildcats never trailed, breaking from an 11-11 tie midway through period one to a 24-17 margin by the end of the period, paced by senior Trevor Hanna’s 8 points and junior Collin Jones’s 7 points. Both had 15 each by halftime which saw CM with a 44-36 lead. That would be as close as the visitors would get, the Wildcats maintaining a double-digit through most of the second half. When season-long leading scores Jones and Matt Storeman sat for much of the third period due to foul trouble, their teammates picked them up, Izzy McCann with 8 points in the period and Jake Skrtich off the bench with two 3-pointers during that stretch.

Coach Bardo noted his five double-figure scorers, stating the balance made it “difficult (for Huntingdon) to take us out of our game.” Bardo said, “The team has come a long way with our half-court offense; we didn’t have to get into a lot of sets.” He liked the multiple contributions, showing the team’s “unselfishness; out for a common goal, the team.”

One negative, Bardo said, was turn-overs, 21 in all, only four of them forced, he pointed out.

Jones led the offense with 22 points. Hanna finished with a career-high 20 points. Also in double-figures were Storeman with 13, McCann with 12 and Skrtich with 11. Also providing points, in addition to Skrtich, were J.T. Pentz with 8, Addison Thomas with 3 and Ethan Baker and Tyler Adair with 1 each.

The Wildcats (4-2; 2-1) get back into Heartland Conference play Friday at Selinsgrove (5-4; 2-0). Bardo said the Seals will be a formidable foe; they are currently the only undefeated team in conference play.