Panthers speed past Huskies

By Kenny Varner
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Updated: December 17, 2014

LEWISTOWN –Too fast. Too furious. The Central Dauphin boys basketball team opened their contest with the Mifflin County Huskies quickly, building an early 18-4 first quarter advantage and never looked back. Despite Mifflin County making some runs at the deficit, the Huskies never got into the game as the Panthers went on for a 78-40 victory Tuesday night at the Mifflin County High School Gym. East finished the contest with four players hitting the double-digit marks in the scoring column. Dwight Whitlock, who was responsible for much of the Panthers first quarter success netting 10, finished the battle with Mifflin County with a 22-point effort. Evan Chandler, who kept the second quarter going with a 9-point stanza output, finished as second high scorer with 13. Rounding out the double-digit scorers for the visitors were Isaiah Salmon and Derrick Biney, both with 10. Mifflin Counties’ lone bright spot in the scoring column came from the shooting of Nate Koller. Koller roped two triples, three field goals and two free-throws on his way to a 14-point effort. “We didn’t play good defense. We didn’t force them out of the middle. So when you drive the middle its easier the kick out for threes. Its easier to get rebounds below on the floor. We didn’t do a good job of keeping them out of the middle,” Mifflin County Coach Spencer said. “Offensively, we’re impatient especially when they made a little quick run at the beginning of the game. We took some bad shots. Pretty typically, the team that takes the better shots gets the victory.” From the first shot of the game, the Panthers controlled the tempo and went right at the heart of the Mifflin County defense. Before the Huskies were able to get their footing in the ball game, East went on a 16-0 run, forcing a Mifflin County time out. In that run, five different Panthers picked up points. With 3:51 left in the opening stanza, Koller got the Huskies on the scoreboard, hitting one-of-two from the charity stripe. As the buzzer sounded for the first, CD East held an 18-4 advantage. After struggling in the second quarter as well, scoring just eight points, Mifflin County came out in the third quarter and started to see some of their shorts finally start to fall. In the stanza, the Mifflin County round-ballers finished with 19 points, seven more points than they scored the entire first half. While the effort was their offensively, the defense still struggled as it gave up 24 points, upping the Panthers led to 18 going into the final quarter. It seemed that whoever the Panthers had in the ball game, the points were still going up on the scoreboard. Coming off the bench, Salmon hit all of his 10 points came in the final eight minutes of play as Jesse White and Justin Henry’s four. Jordan Wolfkill came off the Mifflin County bench an added some excitement, hitting two buckets, a field goal and a triple. However, it wouldn’t help his team fight back from the early deficit it found itself in for much of the game. CD outscored the Huskies in the final stanza as well by a 21-9 margin en route to the 38-point victory. In the JV contest, the Panthers also won, winning a 47-37 contest. Mifflin County is back in action Friday night when it travels to Cumberland Valley.