It’s Basketball season and Coach Buell Gonzales Jr. brought his team to the Yreka Miner Invitational Tournament. The team took to the hardwood sporting their new uniforms and matched up with the tournament host Yreka Miners. A defensively aggressive Bruin team seemed sluggish in getting started as the home team hit their shots early on.
The Miners would take a 15 to 10 lead into the second quarter as the Bruins continued to find their place. The Miners made nothing easy for the Bruins and the Bruins struggled under the basket to control rebounds as the Miners took advantage of fast breaks and easy layups. As the Bruins fought to stay in the game, they began to drive to the basket drawing 11 free throw opportunities but only converting on 6 of them as they trailed by 7 points 32-25 at the half.
The Miners came out and started the 3rd determined to increase their lead making the Bruins play a more aggressive style of defense resulting in free throws for the Miners and foul trouble for the Bruins. The Miners would increase their lead to 14 points with two minutes left in the third period and would go on to outscore the Bruins 19-10 at the end of the third quarter.
The fourth period saw the Bruins turn the tables on the Miners as the Bruins turned up the hustle and forced the Miners into turn-overs as they denied the inbound pass. This created fast breaks and layups that the Bruins took advantage of bringing the Bruins within 8 with 6:30 left in the game. The Bruins continued the aggressive inside play as the Miners Coach tried to slow the Bruins push with timeouts, but Brookings-Harbor would fight back within 2 points with 2 minutes left in the game.
However, the aggressive play that put them in foul trouble earlier would come back to haunt them in the end when #3 senior forward Jaime Cruz would foul out of the game. The Miners would then put together a basket putting them up by four, followed by an inbound steal and then a foul in a sequence that ended the Bruins run.
The Miners would go on to score 5 more points and finish the game 65-55. The Bruins will play a second-round game today at 2:30 pm.
