HUMBOLDT Struggles at the free-throw line proved costly for the Humboldt Cubs in their season opener Friday night against Eureka. The Cubs lost 56-48, despite leading for much of the contest.
The Cubs hit just 14-of-31 shots from the charity stripe as they saw a four-point lead evaporate late in the third quarter.
The free-throw line tells the story of the game. Overall I am pretty pleased with our performance tonight. We had a lot of guys get their first varsity experience. We had three guys in the starting lineup who had never played in a varsity game, Humboldt head coach David Taylor said. Eureka has a very good team. We were right there with them, just couldnt get it done at the free-throw line.
Isiah Coronado scored a team-high 15 points for the Cubs, 10 of which came in the first quarter as he connected on two long-range 3s. Humboldt jumped out to a 17-13 lead going into the second quarter.
The Cubs went into the break nursing a 26-23 lead with Josh Hull scoring four points in the quarter.
Coronado started the third with an inside bucket as Humboldt took a six-point lead early in the third, but Eurekas Masen Huddleston scored six quick points followed by a bucket from Cade Larcom, which gave the Tornadoes their first lead of the contest at 35-34 with 3:39 left in the third.
Eureka took a 40-38 lead into the fourth quarter, where Braden Rucker (6-3, junior) went to work scoring six straight points as the Tornadoes charged to a 46-40 lead.
Conor Haviland scored on a putback and went 3-for-3 from the charity stripe to pull the Cubs within three with 5 minutes left to play, but that was as close as they would come.
Quinton Phelan took over down the stretch as Eureka held on for the win.
They are a very sound club. We were lucky to get Phelan in foul trouble early. He scored over 30 points every time we played them last year, Taylor said. I told the guys if they want to be in every game we play, there are two things they can do. They can play defense and rebound. Eureka out-manned us tonight, they have a big team. But in the first half we got a lot of rebounds that we probably shouldnt have been able to get. That comes down to effort. We did the things that we needed to do early but couldnt keep it going in the second half. But I am very pleased with our effort.
Hull finished with 12 points, followed by Haviland who scored 11. Drew Wilhite had 5 points and Kaiden Barnett added three.
The Cubs will be in action again on Tuesday when they host the Humboldt Tournament.
