MEN’S BASKETBALL

The Huntington men’s basketball team picked up its first league win Tuesday night in Platt Arena by slipping past Goshen 75-66. It’s HU’s fourth straight win over the Maple Leafs who are currently 3-8 on the season, 0-2 in league play.

Platt and company move to 5-4 on the year which includes a 1-1 record in CL action.

The visitors jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead and then enjoyed an 8-5 advantage before handing over the lead for good on Konner Platt’s first of five triples at the 11:35 mark. Platt’s long ball spurred a 14-2 run that included back-to-back buckets by Klajd Kiri down low for a 25-13 HU tilt.

HU extended their lead to as many as 16 before taking a 35-24 advantage into the locker room. The first half saw five Foresters get into the scoring column. Sixteen of HU’s 35 points came from the paint.

As it turned out, Goshen outscored their hosts by two in the final 20 minutes but not before Huntington ballooned the lead to 17, 64-47, with just over six minutes to go. Things were clicking on all cylinders for HU at that point, but the pesky Maple Leafs made one final push by scoring 12 of the game’s next 14 points to keep things interesting.

With the difference just eight points at 67-59, Spencer Ballinger went 1-for-2 from the line after which GC rattled off the next five points thanks to the play of Sheddrick Porter who buried a three and then swiped a steal for an easy basket by teammate Landon Newnum. The score stood at 68-64 with 1:41 to go but a collected Forester squad wasn’t about to relinquish control.

At the defensive end, Huntington forced Goshen into a pair of turnovers while at the other end Ballinger’s put back beat out the shot clock after which Platt canned two freebies to cushion the lead to eight at 72-64 with :41 ticks to go. Then began the march to the free throw line where Huntington got the job done to cruise to the win.

Platt finished with a game-best 31 points which included going 12-for-13 from the charity stripe. Ballinger added 13 points as HU’s only other double-digit scorer. He also corralled a game-high eight rebounds. Peyton West did a little bit of everything for his team by finishing with eight points, five rebounds, a team-leading four assists, two blocks and two steals.

Austin Branagan tossed in 15 points to pace the Maple Leafs. Michael Bowers and Landon Newnum each added 12 while Tahj Curry dropped in 11.

Next up for Huntington is a trip to Grace on Saturday for a 3:00 p.m. tip-off with the Lancers.