Pirates come up short against Highland

GOSNELL -- It's been a tough two weeks for the Gosnell Pirates.

Coming into Friday night's 3-4A contest against visiting Highland, the Pirates had played four consecutive games that were decided by four points or less. Friday night's result was nearly as close with the Pirates finding themselves on the short end of a 61-56 decision to the Rebels at the Gosnell Physical Education Center.

Trailing by double digits for most of the first three periods, Gosnell clawed their way back into the game late in the fourth period. Trailing by six with just over three minutes to play, Rod Jones buried a three-pointer from the elbow to bring the Pirates to within three at 53-50. It was the closest they had been to the Rebels since trailing 5-3 midway through the first period. Highland, as they had done all night, answered with a three-point bucket of their own from power forward Avery Johnson to put the Rebels back up six and seize the momentum from the surging Pirates. From that point on, the Rebels kept their distance at the free throw line. They only hit five of 10 attempts over the final two and a half minutes but it was enough to hold the Pirates off for the victory.

"It just seemed like every time we'd make a basket to get back in it, they'd hit something," said Pirate head coach Kirk Glintborg. "Then we have to foul at the end. Of course against these teams, it's really hard to foul at the end and get back in the game."

Early on, the Pirates struggled to keep the crafty Rebels out of the paint on defense and had a hard time finding the basket on offense. Gosnell trailed 15-8 at the end of the first period and with six minutes left to play in the second, they had committed more fouls (nine) than scored points (eight).

Glintborg struggled to find answers for his teams slow start on both ends of the court.

"I just didn't know what we needed to do," he said. "I'm thinking, do we go 1-3-1? Do we go 2-3? Do we jump out and play man? When we'd jump out and play man, they'd find someone open and score. When we'd go 1-3-1 and try to gamble and get some steals, they'd hit a three."

Gosnell trailed 30-19 at halftime and 43-33 heading into the fourth.

"We struggled to hit shots early," said Glintborg. "I thought we came out sluggish. When you can't hit shots and you get down early, your defense isn't the same either. There's a lot of things that you're not able to do. You can't jump into our press as often."

Glintborg put most of his teams struggles on himself.

"The fluidity just wasn't there offensively. That was my fault. We probably should have changed some things earlier in the game to get more looks inside. We stayed in what we were running in the first half and just didn't get much out of it. We were taking tough shots and forced shots and you're not going to make as many of those. We didn't attack their zone as aggressively in the first half.

"They took a couple of charges on us early and that slowed us down. We did a lot better job of getting the ball inside in the second half. There is just so much that I think about after the game that we could have done and should have done."

The Pirates drop to 10-9 overall and 4-6 in the conference with four more conference games to go before the district tournament.

They'll most likely need to win out if they want to prevent getting a 5-8 seed in the district tournament which would require them to win at least two games before advancing to the regional tournament. While Glintborg said the team has plenty to work on, he has no problem with his personnel.

"I like this team," he said. "I do. If we ever get hot and start making some shots, we can beat anybody. We need to be a team that gets a lead on people and force them to play our style. I think we're a better team than what we're showing. We've got a lot of potential."

Rod Jones led the Pirates with 21 points, while Marcus McClain added 10. Avery Johnson led Highland with 22.

Gosnell returns home Tuesday to take on the Harrisburg Hornets before hitting the road on Friday for a trip to Pocahontas.

In junior high action, the Gosnell Pirates defeated Highland, 49-38. Rodale Jones led the Pirates with 18 and Brandon Partee added 17.

The Junior Pirates improved to 17-4 on the year and a perfect, 10-0, in the 3-4A conference.

afitzpatrick@blythevillecourier.com