Eagles surge in third quarter to down Saxony Lutheran 76-54

ORAN -- Moving over the .500 mark on the season, the Oran Eagles rode a hot start to the third quarter by Alex Heuring on Friday to a 76-54 win over Saxony Lutheran.

Scoring eight points in a 10-2 Oran run to open up the second half, Heuring led the Eagles in turning a six-point halftime lead into a 46-32 advantage just 2:20 into the quarter.

"We talked about at halftime their big guy being out and trying to take advantage of it," Oran head coach Joe Shoemaker said. "(Alex) did a good job. He played a lot harder tonight than he has been."

Though a quick timeout allowed the Crusaders (4-7) to regroup and close back to within 10, the Eagles (6-5) got a 3-point play from Seth Ressel before Kody Moore nailed three-quarter court shot at the buzzer to pushed Oran out to 54-38 advantage.

Sealing the win, Oran came out in the final frame and got a quick 3-pointer from Moore to open up an 8-2 run in the first two minutes.

Late in the fourth Oran was able to grab their biggest lead of the night, at 76-50, when Ressel rebounded after a missed free throw before going back up for the bucket with 1:44 to play.

"We didn't show a lot of fire tonight," Saxony head coach Dane Church said. "They came out and jumped on us early We kind of got back in it at the end of the first half and then the second half we just played scared and stopped attacking the basket.

"Just kind of shut down."

The Crusaders' effort were hampered early on when just three minutes into the game, starter and inside presence, Nick Johnson was lost to injury while fighting for a rebound.

"He does a lot for us," Church said of Johnson. "He plays good defense, he rebounds well and we get into him quite a bit. It doesn't lose us the game or anything, but it affected us."

Down 6-2 at that point, Saxony went on to trail by as many as nine in the first quarter before ending the frame down 23-16.

Going down by as many 11 with under a minute to play in the first half, the Crusaders were able to close back to within 36-30 at the break off a pair of baskets from Gabe Bohnert.

Fouled with 19 seconds remaining in the second, Bohnert connected on both his shot and ensuing free throw before stealing the ball at half court and going in for an open layup with six seconds remaining.

"We didn't finish the first half very well," Shoemaker said. "We let them in on a 5-0 run. We were a little disappointed in that and then they came out and executed well in the second half."

Leading the Eagles on the contest, Moore finished with a game-high 31 points. He hit six of Oran's seven 3-pointers on the contest while going 7 of 9 from the free throw line. Second on the team was Heuring with 22 points while Ressel added 17 to Oran's cause.

"The kids worked on executing over Christmas break and they did a good of it," Shoemaker said. "When you have some inside scoring and outside scoring it makes thing easier.

"That's something we'll have to have to be consistent the rest of the year, is inside scoring and outside scoring. We're going to have to defend and rebound a little better. We didn't do bad tonight, but they're some areas we need to improve on there."

Hitting six 3-pointers, Clayton Carver had a team-high 21 points for the Crusaders, including 15 in the first half. Bohnert and Trent Steffens had 13 and 11 points respectively.

Earlier in the night, Oran's junior varsity held off a late push by Saxony's junior varsity for a 59-54 win.

Jacob Priggel and Hunter Schlosser had 19 points each to lead the Eagles while Chance Tenkhoff contributed 17.

Saxony Lutheran 11 19 8 16 - 54

Oran 19 17 18 22 - 76

SAXONY (54) -- Trent Steffens 11, Chase Steffens 3, Clayton Carver 21, Gabe Bohnert 13, Nick Johnson 2, Jack Lake 4. FG 21, FT 5-8, F 18. (3-pointers: Chase Steffens 1, Clayton Carver 6. Fouled out: none.)

ORAN (76) -- Kody Moore 31, Seth Ressell 17, Blake Carlyle 3, Dalton Elfrink 1, Alex Heuring 22, Blake Henson 2. FG 29, FT 11-16, F 13. (3-pointers: Moore 6, Carlyle 1. Fouled out: none.)