ERIC FORTUNE
BRISTOLVILLE — The game scared Grand Valley coach Luke Strohm. The Mustangs have been accustomed to scrimmaging the Bristol Panthers over the summer and his squad dealt with what he described as issues during those matchups.
It might be some kind of matchup issue in his opinion, either way his fears were realized as the Panthers beat the Mustangs, 70-54.
Bristol (5-9) came out and played a style of play both coaches like — fast and up-tempo. Though the contrasts of how both teams played was never more evident than how the game started out.
The Panthers attacked and brought the intensity from the get go. The Mustangs (7-6) settled for jumpers - jumpers that didn’t fall. They attempted five 3’s in the opening quarter that rimmed in and out. It was the sign of things to come and changed the complexion of the game in Strohm’s opinion.
“We felt we matched up the same as they did, but the one thing I stressed was that we shoot the ball good, but I wanted to attack the basket,” Bristol coach Mark Mollohan said. “After seeing them, I know Grand Valley likes to put up a lot of jumpers. I told my guys lets play fast, lets play uptempo, but don’t get caught where we are trying to match them with every shot.
“They want to settle for jumpers, they get one shot, pull down the board, lets outlet and go at them. I thought offensively, we could attack them.”
Bristol perfected that style of play and jumped out to a quick 18-8 advantage after one.
Despite the rough start, the Mustangs had one opening to getting back into the game in the form of the four minute shooting drought by the Panthers. The Mustangs took advantange and did tie it up at 18 all, but from there the defense as it was most night was too soft to contain the Panthers’ attack as Bristol ran off an 11-2 run to make it 31-20 at the half.
“They did a good job of attacking the hole and we were a little soft defensively,” Strohm said. “Offensively, we got the looks that we’re accustomed to getting, but we were just not getting them to go down. They put the ball in the hole. We didn’t.”
The Mustangs still stuck around for most of the third quarter and got it as close as six in the quarter and trailed 45-37 going into the final quarter thanks in large part to Sophomore A.J. Henson’s play as he got the Mustangs back within a single digit deficit at eight. He finished with 17 points and six assists.
“A.J. just makes everyone around him better,” Strohm said. “He really does. I know he had a rough night shooting and he’s going to be a little hard on himself, but he does a really good job of getting the ball to the person with the hot hand and just handling the pressure.”
For Bristol, there was no letdown in the cards as Andrew Holko scored 14 of his game high 32 points. It was more pleasing to his coach as Holko had been in single digits over the last four games.
Chris Collins was the floor general who found Holko many times throughout the game as his night was just as big with 11 points and seven assists.
Fortune is a correspondent for the (Warren) Tribune Chronicle.
