Storm come out smoking

PRINCETON — Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And the Bureau Valley Storm had plenty of fire Friday, Feb 6, at Prouty Gym.

The Storm scored the first 10 points of the game against host Princeton following the delay of pregame Senior Night introductions due to a smoking speaker from the gym rafters. And after the Tigers rallied within three points at halftime and one point to start the third quarter, the Storm stoked their fire again to run off another 10 straight points on the way to a 69-49 win in Three Rivers East Conference play.

“Tommy thought that maybe lightning hit the school,” BV coach Jason Marquis said of Storm senior forward Tommy Johnston about the smoking speaker.

The sixth-ranked Storm brought their own lightning. BV senior guard Parker Neuhalfen converted a 3-point play, Josh Mead hit a two, Alex Johnson a three and Johnson scored on a outback to put the Storm on top 41-30 with 5:55 to play in the third quarter.

“For some reason, we always come out guns a blazing in the third,” Neuhalfen said. “After that run, we kept it going, played defense and didn’t let them come back into it. I guess we’re just a second-half team.”

Johnston added back-to-back three and Neuhalfen added another as the Storm stretched their lead to 54-37 at the 1:38 mark of the third quarter.

“I think our kids did lot of good things in the first half, but it didn’t show up on the scoreboard,” Marquis said. “But they knew if they kept at it possession after possession that good things were going to happen.”

PHS coach Jesse Brandt said not many good things happened for the Tigers after they rallied in the first half.

“They flat out beat us in the second half at both ends of the court,” he said. “We played decent the first half, but the second half we didn’t shoot it very well and they did. They made shots, and we didn’t guard them well enough while they guarded us pretty well. They just beat us in aspects in the second half.”

Princeton, which started senors Michael Camp, Garrett Duffin, Zach Friel, Brenton Schmidt and Tyler Clark for Senior Night, weathered the early storm, scoring nine straight points, including threes on the back end of a 9-0 run to close within 10-9 at the 3:06 mark of the first quarter.

Schmidt scored the first five points of the second quarter to get the Tigers within 19-17. Junior Dalton Jilderda hooped twice as part of a 9-2 PHS run followed by a three by Duffin and a hoop by Jake Reinhardt to give a short-lived 26-25 lead with 2:55 left in the first half.

The Tigers trailed by three at half and one to start the third quarter, but never led again.

Neuhalfen led all scorers with 26 points. Johnston added 17 points and 12 rebounds.

For PHS (13-8, 4-4), Duffin had 15 points and nine rebounds and Reinhardt had 13 points.

• Notes: Princeton swept both underclass contests. Colton Youngren had 14 points to lead the PHS sophs to a 51-30 win. Corbin Endress had 13 points for BV. The freshmen game also went to PHS, 55-32, with Mason Nave netting 15 points. ... The Bureau County rivals will meet again Friday, Feb. 20, for a make-up contest in Manlius and both will head to the Fulton Regional.

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