PYLE, BROWN, DOILE, MALVO LEAD SCORING

By William

MCPHERSON – The McPherson Middle School 8th grade boys basketball teams earned a split of a pair of home games on Thursday with Derby North.

The 8th grade Junior Pups won their ‘A’ game while the ‘B’ team lost.

Next up for the 8th grade Junior Pups will be on Saturday when they play Prairie Hills.

Game summaries are as follows:

8th GRADE JUNIOR PUPS ‘A’ TEAM GAME INFO:

SCORE: JUNIOR PUPS 52, Derby North 36

8TH GRADE JUNIOR PUPS ‘A’ TEAM SCORING:

Gabe Pyle – 22; Bishop Brown – 18; Ian Razak – 7; Brenden Doile – 3; Carter Allen – 2.

The 8th grade Junior Pups ‘A’ team moved their record to 3-1 for the season on Thursday with a commanding 52-36 victory at home over Derby North.

“I have always heard people say you never want to play a good team after they have a poor shooting game,” said Head Coach Tyler Brown. “We did not play our best game when we went to Clay Center on Tuesday and missed a large percentage of layups. But tonight, we bounced back with some terrific play and shot the ball really well in our first home game of the season.

Leading the offensive attack was Gabe Pyle with 22 points while Bishop Brown hit for 18. Brown scored 12 of his 18 points in the first quarter to set the tone for the game.

Speaking of his players, Coach Brown continued his game reflections by saying, “Gabe (Pyle) was our leading scorer and that was with him coming out of the fourth quarter. That scenario left us with a situation to make us better. This team relies on Gabe heavily. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why they rely on Gabe, but there will come a time several of these boys will have to step up and execute when he either moves up as a freshman or he is in foul trouble this year. With Gabe out of the game we struggled to get in the flow of our offense down the stretch of the game and we lost the only quarter of the game to Derby North in that fourth quarter.”

Concluding his reflections, Coach Brown added, “Boxing players out and rebounding along with needing a second leader on the floor is where we need to improve but that is the coach in me always wanting to be better. We opened our season on our home court with terrific energy and pace and were able to get our hands on a lot of balls defensively. I feel we bounced back from the Clay Center game really well.”

8th GRADE JUNIOR PUPS ‘B’ TEAM GAME INFO:

SCORE: Derby North 40, JUNIOR PUPS 25

8th GRADE JUNIOR PUPS ‘B’ TEAM SCORING:

 Brenden Doile – 10; Jaxson Malvo – 9; Brody Seidl – 6.

The 8th grade Junior Pups ‘B’ team lost for the fourth time this season on Thursday when they dropped a 40-25 game at home against Derby North.

Brenden Doile just made double digits with 10 points to lead the team in scoring while Jaxson Malvo just missed double digits with nine.

“Six guys played four quarters against a team who had more than enough players coming off the bench to be fresh the whole game,” explained ‘B’ team Coach TJ Jackson during his post-game reflections. “They played hard and I appreciate that they got stronger as the game went on the offensive side. It’s the little things that we need to work on to get better like running through the offense smoothly and defensively knowing our spots so we don’t give easy buckets up due to bad positioning. It’s tough to keep losing but if they keep their heads up they will see that improvement and it’ll start to work out in games soon.”

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