Boys basketball: Athletics hold off late Hope Lutheran rally

Published 12:03 am Saturday, December 10, 2016

The Lyle-Pacelli boys basketball team let a late lead slip away in a season opening loss and it was facing that scenario again in its home opener in Pacelli Gym Friday.

This time the Athletics were able to come up with a solution as they were able to thwart Hope Lutheran’s comeback and win 53-52.

LP had led for much of the night until the Patriots (0-3 overall, 0-2 SEC) used an 11-0 run to go up 49-46with less than three minutes remaining in the game. LP tied the game at 49-49 when Trinity Anderson hit at three-pointer off a drive and dish from eighth grader Jed Nelson and LP took the lead for good when Nathan Drees came up with a steal and he found Kamis Kuku for a lay up that made it 51-49 LP.

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“It was big for us to win after having a tough loss. We got down tonight and then we kept it strong until the end,” said Anderson, who had 12 points and three rebounds. “When I made the [game tying] shot, I kind of looked up and saw there was two minutes left and it was like ‘wow.’ I was kind of in the game and I was just playing.”

Lyle-Pacelli’s Kamis Kuku reaches for a rebound against Hope Lutheran in the first half Friday night at Pacelli. Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com

Lyle-Pacelli’s Kamis Kuku reaches for a rebound against Hope Lutheran in the first half Friday night at Pacelli. Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com

The Athletics (1-1 overall, 1-1 SEC) held a 46-38 lead after Anderson hit a three-pointer, but that’s when Hope Lutheran’s Alec Meinke gave his team momentum by hitting three straight three-pointers in a one-minute stretch.

“Leaving the kid open after he hits the first one should never happen and it certainly should never happen after the second one,” LP head coach Scott Koenigs said. “We’re a younger, inexperienced team and we have a lot of mistakes and a lot of good things happening too. We’re just going to have to play with a lot of emotion. We don’t have a pure post and we don’t have super snipers. We’ve got to be pesky and we’ve got to get steals and lay ups.”

Nelson finished with 14 points, three rebounds and three assists in the win for the Athletics. He saw some varsity time last year as a seventh grader, but this year he’s taking on a bigger role for the Athletics.

“We’ve got a good group of guys and everyone’s really good friends,” Nelson said. “This game really helped us.”

Koenigs said that Nelson has a bright future with LP.

“Jed played extremely well out there and we just need him to relax a little bit,” Koenigs said. “He’s going to become a heck of a player for LP for a long time.”

HL 24  28  —  52

LP 33  20  —  53

LP scoring: Jed Nelson, 14; Trinity Anderson, 12; Brady Lester, 8; Nathan Drees, 8; Joseph Maas, 5; Kamis Kuku, 4; Bailey Rosas, 2; free throws: 40 percent (6-for-15); rebounds: 31 (Drees, 8); turnovers: 15