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Lehighton rallies past Palmerton

Lehighton head coach Trevor Miller is aware of his team’s potential to play winning basketball.

It’s safe to say he was quite content following his team’s second-half showing against Palmerton in Wednesday’s first-round matchup of the Slatington Rotary Tournament.

The Tribe, who held their foes to 10 points in the second half, erased a 13-point halftime deficit as they battled back after Lehighton’s Devon Haydt hit the first of two free throws with half a second left in the game to claim a spot in the tournament final.

“I challenged our guys at halftime, and we were playing man in the first half, and Palmerton was getting pretty much whatever they wanted,” Miller said. “We made some adjustments, switched to a 3-2 in the second and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Tonight it worked.”

It wasn’t only the Tribe’s defensive switch that made a difference. Lehighton didn’t yield a single turnover for the final 16 minutes, while making a difference with wise shot selection and a will to win.

“Give credit to Lehighton,” Palmerton head coach Ken Termini said. “They battled hard, got good shots, they pounded it inside and didn’t settle for the three.”

Lehighton saw an early 7-0 lead disappear as Kody Kratzer hit consecutive triples, and the Blue Bomber pressure yielded a 10-0 run to end the first frame with an 18-11 advantage.

Eleven points from Nate Dougherty helped the blue and white add to their lead, as fast breaks and hustle helped his team to a 40-27 edge at intermission.

“There have been games so far this season where we were clearly the better team for one or two frames,” Miller said. “But we haven’t put together that four frames in a game so far, and tonight our first half was not the best. But we definitely did enough to get the win.”

The differences were apparent almost immediately. Lehighton’s aggression yielded four quick points to start the second half, and a 14-4 third brought the Tribe back to within 44-41 heading into the fourth.

“I’m happy with the way we kept fighting back and kept battling,” Miller said.

Zach Hunsicker’s turn-around in the lane opened up the final session, which cut the Bomber lead to one (44-43). However, Kratzer hit a three to bump Palmerton’s lead back up to 47-43 with 5:42 left.

Addison Howland made a turn-around in the lane a minute later, and on the Indians’ next possession he hit a triple to give them their first lead since the opening two minutes.

“Coming into this tournament, we have been improving on a game-to-game basis,” Howland said. “We knew that we had an awesome shot at winning and we would just need to work hard in order to get it.”

The Indians did exactly that as their effort seemed more apparent in the waning minutes.

Nate Dougherty made a driving layup with just over a minute left to cut it to 50-49, and an offensive rebound yielded free throws for Zach Silfies, who made the second to tie it at 50 apiece with 27 seconds remaining.

After a Lehighton time out with just under 10 seconds, Howland found Devon Haydt on the left side of the lane, who was fouled with half a second left on the clock.

Haydt made the important one and the Bombers’ full-court heave hit the backboard.

HOT AND COLD ... The shooting percentage for the Bombers plummeted in the second half, as their first half of 59 percent (17-for-29; 4-for-8 on three-pointers), was different from their second half of 20 percent (4-for-20; 1-for-11 from three-point range). Lehighton improved from 44 percent (11-for-25; 5-for-13 to 53 percent (9-for-17; 1-for-4).

TRIBAL BALANCE ... Led by Howland’s 12 points, the Indians received some balanced scoring throughout their lineup as Zach Hunsicker followed with nine points, and three players had seven points each in Stephen Heery, Devon Haydt and Ben Schatz.

LEHIGHTON

Strauss 1-0-0-3, Heery 2-2-2-7, Hunsicker 4-0-0-9, Crum 0-2-2-2, Beers 0-0-0-0, Haydt 2-3-4-7, Schwab 0-0-0-0, Howland 5-0-0-12, Yturrino 0-0-0-0, Potts 2-0-0-4, Schatz 3-0-0-7. TOTALS: 19-7-8-51.

PALMERTON

Kratzer 6-0-0-18, Young 0-0-0-0, King 0-0-0-0, Dougherty 9-2-4-21, Hosier 3-0-0-6, Buck 1-0-0-2, Silfies 2-1-2-5. TOTALS: 21-3-6-50.

Lehighton 11 16 14 10 - 51

Palmerton 18 22 4 6 - 50

Three pointers: Leh - Howland 2, Heery 1, Hunsicker 1, Schatz 1; Palm - Kratzer 4, Dougherty 1.

Palmerton’s Ryan King tries to dribble past the defense of Lehighton’s Addison Howland. MIKE FEIFEL/TIMES NEWS