Barbers Hill 51 Nederland 41

[bh146]

Brooks Ybarra lead BH with 26 points.

[Guest etbu]

Brooks Ybarra lead BH with 26 points.

:shock: :shock:

[sticky]

BH boys hold off Nederland

By Doyle Barlow

Baytown Sun

Published November 15, 2006

With several of their players missing because of football, the Barbers Hill basketball team doesn’t figure to be at its best for a while. But don’t try telling that to Nederland.

Barbers Hill used a tenacious defense and 26 points from junior Brooks Ybarra to come away with a 51-41 victory over the Bulldogs in the season opener for both teams Tuesday night. Ybarra had 10 of his 26 in the fourth quarter, including six straight after Nederland had pulled to within 41-37 on a 3-pointer by Jordan Pitts with 5:28 left.

But Ybarra, who had just scored on two baseline drives, buried a 3-pointer to push the lead to 44-37, and then moments later, he pulled down an offensive rebound, and hit an off-balance putback while drawing a foul. After making the free throw, BH led 47-39 with 2:28 left.

“It’s nice having a go-to guy like that,†Barbers Hill coach Nathan Toon said. “Once we get Mason (Fisher) and Michael Davis back, we’ll have three of them.

“But it was a good win to open the season and I’m proud of the way we scrapped.â€

Nederland came out gunning from behind the arc, as the Bulldogs hit two early treys on their way to building a 10-4 lead. But the Eagles began to chip into the lead, and when Ian Hamlin converted a conventional three-point play, BH was within 15-13.

Moments later, Ybarra hit his first of three treys on the night to give BH its first lead.

Nederland rallied to tie the game at 19-19 on a putback by Evan Fitch, but Josh Kuritz scored for a 21-19 lead, and then with no time showing on the clock Kuritz was fouled. He hit one of two to put BH up 22-19 at the end of the first quarter, and from that point, the Eagles never trailed.

Barbers Hill shot just 37 percent from the field on the night, compared to 39 percent for Nederland. But the Eagles had a big edge in the turnover battle, committing only six on the night to 17 for the Bulldogs.

“We missed a lot of shots that we’d normally make,†Toon said. “But we took care of the ball and played good defense. We knew they were going to take a lot of 3’s, and if we’d got out there on those three they made in the first quarter, things would have been even better.â€

In addition to Ybarra, Matt Gilbert had eight points for the Eagles and Jon Daniels added 7. Kuritz had 4 and Hamlin and Micah Moore had 3 each,

Nederland (0-1) was paced by Micah Van Schonbeck and Micah Torres with 9 apiece.

Barbers Hill will return to action Friday at 4:30 p.m. at home against Anahuac.

[bulldog81]

Nederland is really young. We started 4 sophs and 1 sr. Of the 9 boys that played, 3 were srs. and 6 were sophs. We've got a long way to go, but with coach English and a lot of hard work, we're gonna get there.