Marble Falls boys basketball loses to Gateway
CAPTION: Senior forward Garen Jones scored almost half of the Mustangs’ points against Georgetown Gateway in a performance head coach John Berkman called “phenomenal.” Contributed photos by Christopher A. Miles/Christopher A. Miles Photography
The Marble Falls High School boys basketball team lost to Georgetown Gateway 63-61 Jan. 10 for the Mustangs’ first loss in District 24-4A play.
The Mustangs (13-8, 3-1) trailed 14-13 after the opening stanza and 42-22 at the half.
But Marble Falls outscored Gateway (12-7, 4-1) 15-8 in the third quarter to trim the deficit to 50-37.
Then the Mustangs lit up the scoreboard in final eight minutes, dropping in 24 points and limiting the Gators to 13. But it wasn’t enough to overcome the first-half deficit.
“We did everything right in the last minute,” head coach John Berkman said. “Being able to play as well as we did in the second half shows a lot of resiliency in our team.”
Gateway showed the ability to score in different ways. The Gators hit nine 3-pointers in the first half and crashed the offensive boards for more shots.
“They got a ton of offensive rebounds,” Berkman said. “They didn’t hit a single 3-pointer in the second half. We weren’t ourselves on defense or offense. I never felt like we quit playing hard.”
The coach said the halftime address “was short” because he emphasized wanting to see the game plan in the next two quarters: playing with more defensive enthusiasm and more focus on offense.
“We talked a lot about capitalizing on where we had our advantages,” he said. “Defensively, we needed to force them into shots they’d miss.”
The Mustangs experienced a 15-0 run “then we didn’t take care of our business,” Berkman said.
Senior forward Garen Jones led with 29 points followed by senior guard Tidus Willie with 17 and sophomore guard Beckett Berkman scored 6.
“He had two 3-pointers late,” the coach said. “We needed scoring from other guys we didn’t get.”
Gateway’s win moves the Gators to first place in the district followed by Marble Falls, Lampasas (17-8, 3-1), Burnet (14-12, 3-2), Salado (10-14, 1-3), Taylor (10-9, 1-3) and Jarrell (6-14, 0-4).
This game was indicative of what Berkman believes this district is – lots of parity where athletes must play well for 32 minutes to have a chance at a victory.
“Everybody in our district can play well and can beat anybody on any given night,” he said. “It was pretty impressive we had a chance. We just need to be able to finish possessions on the defensive end. I’m really proud of our effort and the finish in the game as opposed to how we started with it. We can fight hard and get back in games against anybody.”
Marble Falls welcomes Taylor Tuesday, Jan. 14, with the junior varsity playing at 5 p.m., the freshmen at 6:30 p.m. and the varsity at 8 p.m.
Before the varsity game, the program will conduct its senior night.
