Mirror photo taken by Nymire Shields’ Patrick Wakmonski of Altoona trying to dribble around Central Dauphin East’s AJ Cooper at AAHS Fieldhouse on Friday night.
The Altoona Area High School boys basketball team is winless in its first four games, and Mountain Lions second-year coach Doug Fifer believes the team’s struggles with basketball care is a big reason for its slow start.
“Not paying attention and turning the basketball around has been our Achilles heel this season,” Fifer said. “As the head coach, it all starts with me. I have to put the players in the right positions in training and preparation for the match where that doesn’t happen.
The Mountain Lions were snakebitten by turnovers again Friday night, squandering a 22-9 lead in the second quarter as visiting Central Dauphin East rallied on the strength of a strong fourth quarter to record a 54-48 Mid-Penn Conference win at Altoona Area High School Field .
Led by 5-foot-11 sophomore guard Alijah Cooper’s 22 points, including 15 in the fourth quarter that carried the Panthers, 20-13, CD East boosted its overall record to 2-3 and its conference mark to 1-1 with Victory returns.
“We got off to a great start tonight — probably our best start in a game all season — by coming out quick with the run game, but later in the game, we started to give in to their defensive pressure,” Pfeiffer said. “We had no less.” “About 20 turnovers tonight, maybe closer to 25.”
CD East’s speed, quickness and athleticism kept the Mountain Lions’ offense at bay in the second half. The free-throw line was also a factor — Altoona converted just eight of its 20 foul shots in the game, while CD East made 14 of its 22 shots.
“The foul line hurts us,” Pfeiffer said. “We were only eight out of 20 players at the foul line, while they made their free throws. If we had made four or five more than we did, the result might have been different.”
With senior Cohen Crawford scoring nine points in the first quarter, Altoona used its good transition game to get out of the gates quickly — literally and figuratively.
But CD East cut its second-quarter deficit from 22-9 to just one point, 25-24, at the break behind Kevin Fox’s seven points and senior Eddie Tate’s points off the bench.
Cooper’s steal and layup early in the third quarter gave CD East its first lead of the night, 26-25, and the lead went back and forth between the two teams until midway through the fourth quarter.
Cooper made four field goals and seven of nine free throws in the fourth quarter.
“He has a very high basketball IQ and likes to live in the moment,” CD East coach Ryan Hill said of Cooper. “Even though he’s a sophomore and he’s young, he’s a kid I can trust on the floor. He’s living up to this moment. It’s good to have a kid like that on your team.”
It was certainly during the fourth quarter on Friday, when Cooper flipped the game in CD East’s favor for good.
After a short layup by junior Niemeyer Shields gave Altoona a 41-40 lead, Cooper turned a steal into a length-of-court layup. After being fouled on a shot, he hit the free throw to complete the three-point play, giving CD East a lead it would never relinquish, 43-41, with just over three minutes remaining.
After CD East got the ball back on Nasir Henry’s big rebound, the Panthers got into transition, and Cooper took advantage of an athletic move on the fast break on another layup to give the Panthers a 46-41 advantage.
Another Cooper steal and an Altoona foul led to two Cooper free throws to boost CD East’s advantage to 48-41 with under two minutes remaining.
“We used our pressure and I thought we played a lot better defensively in the second half, and we rebounded a lot better than we did in the first half,” Cooper said.
After junior forward MJ Harrington, who led Altoona’s scoring with 14 points, converted his third 3-pointer of the game on a shot from the top of the circle with 1:20 left to pull the Mountain Lions within 48-44, Fox scored one. Two free throws before Altoona sophomore Dante LaRocco’s layup brought Altoona back within 49-46 with 1:04 remaining.
But Cooper hit three of four free throws down the stretch to help CD East hang on.
Sophomore Rowan Greiser scored 12 points and Crawford finished with 11 for Altoona, which hosts Central Dauphin on Tuesday night.
“We made some plays tonight that gave us our intensity on defense,” Hill said. “This was a good win for us in a very close basketball game.”
GAME NOTES: The 2003 Altoona team that won the District 6 championship and advanced to the state semifinals was honored in the first half… The game’s rebounding leaders were Cooper with eight and Harrington with seven.
East CD (54): Alijah Cooper 7 8-10 22, Henry 1 0-2 2, D. Fox 0 0-0 0, Lunis 0 0-0 0, Vega 1 0-0 3, K Fox 3 3-5 9, Tate 3 2-3 8, AJ Cooper 0 0-0 0, Bird 1 0-0 2, Washington 0 0-0 0, Jackson Copney 2 1-2 5, Green 1 0-0 3. Totals – 19 14-22 54.
Altoona (48): Crawford 4 2-2 11, Corso 0-0 0, LaRocco 1 0-0 2, Greiser 3 5-9 12, Harrington 5 1-7 14, Shields 1 0-0 2, Purvis 3 0 – 0 7, Owulade 0 0-2 0, Dunkle 0 0-0 0, Walker 0 0-0 0. Totals – 17 8-20 48.
The result is in quarters
Oriental CD 5 19 10 20-54
Altona 14 11 10 13-48
Three-point goals: CD East 2 (Vega, Green): Altoona 6 (Harrington 3, Greiser, Crawford, Purvis):
Records: Eastern CD (2-3 overall, 1-1 in Mid-Penn Conference); Altoona (0-4, 0-1).
Officials: Ethan Vipond, Todd Grindel, Brad Martz.
JV: No game.
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