CJHS boys are Tri-Valley League champs
By ROWENA PLETT
Staff writer
The Centre Junior High School Cougars accomplished a goal they set for themselves at the beginning of the season. They claimed the Tri-County League championship Saturday by defeating undefeated Luckey of Manhattan, 40-31.
Luckey was the only team to defeat the Cougars in regular season play. Their only other loss was to Herington in a non-league game.
This is the fourth league championship for Coach Stan Wiles, who has been coaching junior high school basketball for approximately 20 years. He has never had a losing season. His teams won league championships in 1991, 1995, and 1999.
He said the 2006-07 team was made up of goal-setters. They finished third in the league a year earlier and were determined to come back and win it all, which they did.
"It's been a lot of fun working with them," Wiles said. "They are a great bunch of kids. We had a great year all the way around."
The team is comprised of 10 eighth graders and two seventh graders.
To get to the championship, they defeated Solomon Thursday in the semifinals.
Saturday's game, played at Hope, was a thriller. The two teams were neck-and-neck until the final two minutes of the game.
The Cougars led by three, 11-8, after one quarter, and were up by one, 19-18 at halftime. They led by two, 32-30, at the end of three quarters.
It might as well have been the end of the game. Both teams' shooting turned stone cold in the fourth quarter. It wasn't until a little more than two minutes were left in the game when Rustyn Kerbs finally made a field goal to put Centre up by four.
In a desperate bid for a comeback, the Cardinals began fouling to get the Cougars to the free-throw line. In the final minute, Tanner Brunner scored a field goal and a free throw and Brian Burhoop scored a field goal and two free throws while Luckey remained scoreless. The result was an 11-point win for the Cougars.
Burhoop led scoring with 12 points. A.J. Temel scored nine points, Brunner eight, Kerbs seven, Adam Matz three, and Jesse Kopietz two.
The team finished the season with a record of 11-2.
