Bluejays use OT to bury Mac Bulldogs
Ratzlaff scores 21
as Tabor men beat McPherson, 79-68
By RYAN RICHTER
Sports writer
Brad Gattis has a knack for draining the big shot.
Of the Bluejays' 11 wins on the season, four of them have come courtesy of Gattis knocking it down.
The Bluejays got the fourth win Saturday night in McPherson against the Bulldogs and standout Kenny Romero.
With :20 remaining in regulation, Gattis calmly sank a three to briefly put the Bluejays ahead of McPherson, 63-61.
Roy McDonald tied the game with four ticks left on the clock to force overtime, but Gattis' triple changed the complexion of the game.
Paced by Tyson Ratzlaff's team-high 21 points, four-fifths of the Bluejay starters scored in double figures as Tabor (11-13, 11-3 KCAC) ran away in overtime, 79-68.
Heckled by the Bulldog fans all night, Ratzlaff turned up his game a notch the second half, scoring 18 points, including three huge triples.
"Tyson's been in the position to carry us a lot of times," Bluejay coach Don Brubacher said. "But the team hasn't really let him; we haven't played with enough patience to give him the opportunities he needs.
"Tonight, the team did give him every opportunity to play and he did an outstanding job with it and had a great basketball game."
One of the keys to stopping the Bulldogs was keeping the KCAC's leading scorer Romero from taking over the game.
Facing a perplexing Bulldog zone, Tabor hit a drought the first half, going better than 4:00 without a basket.
Romero scored a game-high 27 points, eight coming in the first half including four straight to push the Bulldog lead to 25-17.
Anthony Monson finished with 16 points, scoring four straight of his own to close Tabor's gap to 29-25 at half-time.
Monson scored six straight to open the second half, cutting McPherson's lead to 34-31, 2:49 in.
Finishing with 13 points, Cody Schafer's three-point play at the 16:00-mark knotted the game at 34.
The Bulldogs doubled Tabor up in scoring, 10-5, the next 3:30, jumping to a 44-39 lead before Jared Reese canned a three to make it a two-point game.
Ratzlaff's three with 7:58 to go in regulation ignited an 11-0 Bluejay run, capped off by his three-pointer, giving Tabor its first lead since the 12:17 mark in the first half, 56-54.
In that span, until the end of regulation, Ratzlaff supplied 13 of Tabor's final 18 points.
"The shots go in, you start feeling it," Ratzlaff said. "You start getting open looks, your teammates start looking for you and you start feeling it and get better shots. With my luck, they were going in tonight."
The lead changed hands five times in the closing 4:21 before Gattis popped the Bulldogs' balloon with his three.
Unlike McPherson, Gattis had more left in overtime, scoring five points on his way to 14.
It didn't take a microscope to see the Bulldogs were out of gas. Gattis fueled an 8-0 run to start the bonus segment which sucked the life right out of McPherson.
In its best performance of the season at the free-throw line, Tabor hit a season-high 88 percent, including 9-for-9 in overtime.
The Bluejays shot 53 percent from the floor the second half and 47 on the night, while only connecting on 32 percent of their threes.
Reese joined the four starters in double figures with 10 points, coming off the bench.
On deck for the Bluejays is a an 8 p.m. showdown tonight when they host the Ottawa Braves.
Tabor travels Saturday to Winfield to face the Southwestern Moundbuilders in a 7 p.m. meeting.
Sterling
The Feb. 5 meeting between the Bluejays and Sterling won't be remembered as one of the more stellar performances by Tabor.
In one of their most dismal performances of the season, Tabor hit a pothole against the Warriors, falling 74-59.
The Bluejays faced an uphill battle the majority of the game, trailing 34-27 at half-time.
Michael Moncrief shot the Bluejays' lights out, hitting six threes to score a game-high 27 points and 10 rebounds.
If the lanky Moncrief wasn't enough for the Bluejays, they also had Patrick Williams to deal with.
Williams scored 19 points and seven rebounds to help the Warriors beat Tabor on the boards, 32-25.
Tabor countered with Jeremiah Randall's 11 points while the trio of Tyson Ratzlaff, Brad Gattis, and Anthony Monson each added 10 points.
Colby Bettles pulled down a team-high five rebounds to go along with six points.
Tabor shot nearly 60 percent from the floor the second half, while holding Sterling to 55.
Sterling used 46 percent from downtown and 10-for-12 from the free-throw line to pull away the second half.
Hitting 51 percent from the field on the night, Tabor faltered from long range and at the line, shooting 39 and 57 percent, respectively.
