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Balanced Seminoles too much for Cougars, 59-33

Photo by Mike Morrison Frontier’s Breckin Hoff, left, handles the ball as Monroe Central’s Malachi Rose-Burton defends during a high school boys basketball game Friday night at Hank Morus Gym. Monroe Central won, 59-33.

NEW MATAMORAS — Sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug.

Those are the lyrics to an old country song from back in the day but could also very well describe the kind of week the Frontier Cougars are having.

After a thrilling buzzer-beating win over Waterford on Tuesday and a blow-out win over Beallsville on Wednesday, the Cougars hosted long-time nemesis Monroe Central Friday night looking for their third win of the week.

Unfortunately for head coach Roger Kirkpatrick and his Cougars they were never really in it as the Seminoles rolled to a 59-33 win.

The ‘Noles jumped out to an 11-2 lead at the end of the first quarter and increased the margin to 23 at the intermission (33-10) as they limited the Cougars to just four field goals in the opening half.

“We missed a lot of shots early on and got down and they are a good enough team that is going to take advantage,” said Frontier head coach Roger Kirkpatrick.

“We didn’t play very good defense and didn’t run the offense very well and we just kind of got out of sequence and could never catch up.”

Monroe Central knocked down nine 3-pointers in the game including a pair by Collin Kroll in the second quarter as they built their big lead.

Kroll finished the game with three triples while Dillon Lincoln and Jake Swisher knocked down two apiece.

The Seminoles continued to add-on to their lead in the third as Luke Burkhart rattled in a three-ball and then canned a pair of free throws before the Cougars put together their best run of the game with buckets from Tice Curtis, Caleb Reynolds and Breckin Hoff to cut the lead to 40-17.

An 8-2 MC run pushed the lead to 29 points and the visitors carried a 48-22 lead into the final period.

Monroe Central field goals by John Peterson and Swisher pushed the lead over 30 and the Seminoles cruised the rest of the way to improve to 7-2 on the season.

“Its one of those games where we are playing back-to-back games so we were really focused on execution and I thought we did a good job of that early on,” said MC head coach Jon Perkins, whose team is scheduled to play 14 games in the next 27 days. “I was pleased with the contribution we got from a lot of kids and that’s what we kind of pride ourselves on.”

Lincoln led a very balanced Seminole attack with 12 points while Austin Hogue reached double figures with 11 while also coming up with six steals.

Kroll, Swisher and Burkhart added nine, eight and seven points apiece for Monroe Central which will play it’s second game in as many nights this evening at Bellaire.

“We’ve been close to averaging five guys in double-figures so it’s been a real positive year for us,” said Perkins. “It’s been a different guy every night and that makes us a hard team to scout.”

Frontier junior Tanner Bills was forced to sit much of the second and third quarters after picking up three fouls and still managed to reach double figures with a team-high 10 points while Hoff and Reynolds chipped in with seven and six points respectively.

“We were patient but you have got to make a few shots early on to give yourself some confidence,” said Kirkpatrick, whose Cougars slip to 3-6 with the defeat. “We’ve just got to re-group in a hurry.”

Frontier is right back in action Saturday as well as they travel to Fort Frye to take on the No. 8 ranked Cadets.

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