Fantaski’s late three lifts Bucks past Montgomery 56-53
By Bees O’Brien
FARWELL- Bucktail senior Will Steele celebrated his birthday Friday night in Farwell in a big way. Steele, who is often times the shortest player on the court would come up absolutely huge for the Bucks. Steele’s offensive rebound and pass to fellow senior Brett Mason would allow for Mason to find another Bucktail senior in Braylon Fantaski. With Bucktail knotted 53-53 with Montgomery with just 30 seconds remaining in the game, Fantaski would bury the go-ahead basket on a three-point bucket that would eventually and dramatically life the home squad to a 56-53 Mid Penn Conference victory.
The Bucks were nearly victims of their own comeback game plan against the Red Raiders. Bucktail controlled the game throughout the first three quarters and led by as many as 12 points in the second half. Montgomery, who were recently coming off of their own comeback victory against Williamson earlier in the week came close to doing the same to the Bucks.
The Bucks dominated Montgomery on the glass for the entire game. Bucktail amassed 52 total rebounds for the game, led by Brody Pentz’s 27 and Johnny Green’s 13. Both were career highs for Pentz and Green.
“Johnny played his best inside game of the season.” Head coach Travis Fantaskey said of his senior’s efforts. “As a team we never give up and tonight we never gave up. This is a good 2A win.”
The Bucks allowed themselves some breathing room following a 19-13 second quarter to go up on the Red Raiders 31-20 at the break.
A 14-13 third quarter allowed Montgomery to feel like they had a chance at a comeback. Briar Persing’s three-point basket with 5:10 left in the game would complete Montgomery’s comeback and tie the game at 46-46.
Fantaski would then find Pentz off of an offensive rebound and Green would follow with an offensive putback on one of his 8 rebounds on the offensive end to give Bucktail a 50-46 lead.
Bucktail was up 53-50 when the Red Raiders would connect on a three-point basket, but Fantaski’s long ball with 30 second remaining would be enough for the Bucks, 56-53.
Fantaski finished with a game-high 18 points, while Pentz finished with 17 points to go along with his 27 rebounds. Green would score 7 points to go with his 13 rebounds.
Steele finished with 6 points, 5 rebounds, 5 steals and a blocked shot.
Parker Bennett led Montgomery with 17 points and Hayden Wilt netted 15 in the loss.
Montgomery fell to 3-6, while Bucktail improved to 5-4.
The Bucks are set to hit the road on Monday night where they will meet Jon Ogden’s Austin Panthers (1-7)
Montgomery 7 13 14 19 – 53
Bucktail 12 19 13 12 – 56
Bucktail (56)
Pentz 6 5-7 17, Steele 2 2-2 6, Mason 3 1-2 8, Fantaski 5 6-6 18, Green 1 5-10 7, Whipp 0 0-0 0, Pick 0 0-0 0, TOTALS- 17 19-26 56
3FG- 3 (Fantaski 2, Mason) Rebounds- 52 (Pentz 27, Green 13) Assists- 7 (Pentz 3) Steals- 12 (Steele 5) Blocks-3 (Pentz, Green, Steele)
