Hauser boys head back into tourney action tonight

Following the first half of Hauser’s opening round game of the sectional Wednesday night, fans of the Jets might have assumed that their favorite team had the game well in hand. After all, the Jets led Morristown 29-16 at the break. This cushion coming even though Hauser went scoreless for a six-minute stretch, including the final 4:30 of the first quarter.

But, there are two halves in every game, and Morristown, more specifically the Yellow Jackets’ Nolan Laster, made sure that Hauser had to fight and claw the entire second half to walk away with the 56-45 victory.

The final score is not indicative of exactly how close the game got. Following a first half that saw the Jets’ Bryce Bates and Eli Miller each score nine points, Hauser looked to be rolling. The Jets defense was also stifling. They only allowed two players from Morristown to score points while building a 13-point lead.

The script from the second half, however, was written differently. It was the Yellow Jackets who came out of the locker room on fire, while Hauser could not find the net. It was Laster who did the damage for Morristown, scoring 14 of his game high 32 points in the third quarter.

Laster’s outburst, coupled with the fact that Hauser’s basket seemed to have an invisible lid on it to the point where the Jets did not score a single field goal and could only muster four free throws in the entire quarter, added up to a one-point game heading into the fourth period, with Hauser clinging to a 33-32 lead.

After Morristown took their one and only lead of the game by scoring the first basket of the quarter, Bates took over. The senior scored Hauser’s next seven points to put and keep the Jets in the lead. After trading baskets with Laster during the early part of period, it was freshman Ledger Gelfius who stepped up big. He scored seven points in the final minutes of the contest, including back to back threes that gave Hauser an eight-point lead, essentially putting the game out of reach and moving the Jets to the second round Friday night, when they face Oldenburg Academy.

Bates ended the contest with 16 points, while Miller and Gelfius each had 12. Koby Johnson chipped in six, Taeshaun Tungate added five, as did Cole Renner.