by Jen Burhans
The Berlin boys basketball team was seeded 9th in the Section and were scheduled for an away game with 8th seeded Canajoharie on February 18. Coming off a winning season the team prepared to endure the long bus ride to Canjo by getting in a game with Germantown over the weekend. A strong showing against Germantown gave them hope going into Canjo, but a delay in getting the game started might have thrown them off in the first quarter of play in this Sectional game.
Canjo came out strong and shut down many of Berlin’s drives down court while making most of their own shots. At the end of the first quarter Berlin was down 14-7 but not out of it yet. With some loud cheering coming from a large group of Berlin’s faithful the boys started to work under the boards and traded baskets back and forth with Canjo.
Each team scored 20 points in the second quarter, and Berlin went into the locker room at halftime with a light starting to show at the end of the tunnel. The third quarter found Berlin edging ahead and playing some tighter defense. As was often the case this year they were able to outscore their opponent and made up some ground.
The fourth quarter was exciting as Berlin gained some more points, but slowly Canjo would gain back the advantage as Berlin missed some opportunities. At 1:44 to go the score was tied, and again at 1:22 to go Berlin came back. But they couldn’t get their foul shots to drop, and Canjo inched back ahead. At the buzzer it was a worn down but happy team from Canajoharie that was left to celebrate the score 64-61. Berlin played well but could never gain back what they gave up in the first 8 minutes of the game.
Junior Greg DePaolis led Berlin in scoring with 21 points and 16 rebounds. Seniors Jeff Curtis with 16 points and John Schatz with 14 points and 10 rebounds finished out a strong last year.
Coach Sauer, who maintained a positive outlook for his team all year, said about the game and season, “I thought our team came out and played hard tonight. We were a bit flat in the first quarter which put us behind, and we just were not able to recover and take a lead. Our pressure defense got us back into the game, but we missed opportunities to go ahead, whether it was a missed free throw or an untimely turnover. Our seniors will be missed going into next season, but I have confidence some of our younger players will rise to the occasion and fill the void.”