Story by Kadin Rogers
The Monmouth-Roseville Titans boys basketball team returned to action on Friday night up in Orion to take on a fellow Three Rivers Conference west division opponent in the 21-5 Chargers. M-R hosted Orion in January, with the Chargers taking a home a commanding win. This time the Titans fared better, but it would still be the Chargers coming away with a victory. After a somewhat slow start for both teams, Ethan Clark and Lars Bergren would trade threes with Orion’s Ryan DeBaillie to bring the game to 9-8 in favor of the Chargers with 2 minutes to play in the quarter. Clay Casteel’s three pointer would help the Titans tie up the ball game, but the Chargers took momentum into the second quarter on a buzzer beating shot from Joseph Norton to go up 13-11 after one.
With that aforementioned momentum, the Chargers would string together eleven straight points in the second quarter. DeBaillie would knock down two more threes for Orion in the run. An Andy Myers layup would be answered by a three point play from Maddux Arnold to force another Titans timeout. Payton Thompson and Andy Myers would score back to back to cut the Titans lead back down to 12 with Orion going into the halftime break up 32-20.
Clark would nail a shot from downtown to get the Orion lead back to just single digits, however near the halfway point of the quarter, Duncan Adamson and Ryan DeBaillie would knock down back to back threes to run the lead up to 42-27, forcing a Titans timeout. Ultimately after a three to answer from Clark, Orion would lead by 14 heading into the final quarter of play. Two more Orion threes would only add to their total for the night, and bring their lead up to the largest of the game at 50-30. As they usually do, Monmouth-Roseville would refuse to quit down the stretch, as threes from Payton Thompson and Lars Bergren would quickly shrink the lead down to 51-38. The Titans saw themselves down just 10 in the waining minutes of the game, however was able to hold on to reach their 22nd win of the season.
In the final stat book for Monmouth-Roseville, Andy Myers and Lars Bergren would each score 12 points to lead the way while Ethan Clark also reached double figures with 11. The loss brings the Titans overall record to 11-15 on the season. Monmouth-Roseville will stay in TRAC-West division play next Friday night for a road Valentine’s Day matchup with the division leading Sherrard Tigers.
For the replay of the WMOI radio broadcast of the game, click HERE
