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January 4, 2013

H.S. BOYS' BASKETBALL: Corydon ends losing streak to Floyd Central

Highlanders drop fifth straight, 49-35

BY CHRIS STONER sports@newsandtribune.com

CORYDON — One streak continued Friday night at Corydon Central, while another one ended.

The Panthers defeated Floyd Central 49-35 to break a four-game losing skid to the Highlanders. Meanwhile, Floyd lost its fifth straight game while failing to reach the 40-point mark for the fifth time this season.

“When only give up 49 points, you expect to win,” said current Floyd Central and former Corydon Central head coach Randy Gianfagna. “We’ve got to get better offensively.”

Floyd had more than twice as many turnovers (9) than IT did shot attempts (4) in the first period and trailed 10-4 heading to the second frame. Corydon’s highly touted 6-foot-7 sophomore Bronson Kessinger scored six of his 11 in the opening quarter to power his team to their early lead.

“Overall, I didn’t think we did a bad job on Bronson (Kessinger),” Gianfagna said. “I thought Codie [Hamsley] did a nice job on him.”

The Highlanders regrouped in the second period and closed within 15-12 on Drew Hussung’s first bucket of the game with 2:01 left until intermission. The Panthers, however, finished the half on a 6-2 spurt for a 21-14 halftime advantage.

“We were only going to be down five at half and then we get picked at midcourt for a layup,” said Gianfagna, whose team shot 5-of-8 from the field in the second quarter to stay close. “Things like that just killed us. The big stretch for me was when we had four consecutive turnovers (in the first half). It was a tight game and then we give it away four straight times.”

Despite 13 turnovers and only netting 14 points in the first 16 minutes, the visitors were still within striking distance at halftime thanks to its stingy defense.

“Driving to score is what we talked about at halftime,” Gianfagna said. “We are having trouble with guys not shooting open shots and then guys taking shots that aren’t good ones. We just have to keep working on it.”

After Corydon pushed its lead to double-digits to open the second half, Jackson Logsdon hit his second 3-pointer to pull the Highlanders back within 27-20 at the 4:01 mark in the third. That would be as close as the visitors would get the rest of the way.

Corydon ended the third period on a 12-2 run and held a commanding 34-20 lead heading to the final eight minutes. A Timothy Wiseman steal and layup pushed the hosts lead to 47-27 with 4:42 left to secure Corydon’s third straight win.

“They just made it really hard for us to score and we couldn’t get anything where we wanted it to go,” said Gianfagna, whose team committed 23 turnovers overall.

The Highlanders were led in scoring by Logsdon’s 10. Floyd shot just 36 percent in the second half and was only 5-of-9 from the foul stripe for the game.

Floyd is back in action Friday at Jeffersonville.

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