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McPherson, Watkins spark run; Brighton gets bounce-back win

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Brighton’s Troy McPherson (22) pulls up for a jumper during Tuesday’s action. The senior guard matched his uniform number with a game-high 22 points. Churchville-Chili’s Chase Shepanski defends on the play. (Photo: RON ANDREWS)

By PAUL GOTHAM

CHURCHVILLE, N.Y. — Coming off its first loss of the season, the Brighton boys’ basketball team took to the road looking to get back to winning ways.

An 11-0 run to end the first half gave way to a dominant third quarter.

And a pair of buzzer beaters highlighted the effort.

Troy McPherson scored 22 points. Trygve Watkins added 20, and Reggie Smith, Jr. accounted for 17 as Brighton erased a second-quarter deficit and went on to beat host Churchville-Chili, 75-50.

VIEW MORE PHOTOS FROM RON ANDREWS HERE. 

“Everything clicked tonight,” Brighton head coach Dave Tisa said. “Hopefully, we can keep things rolling.”

Trailing 31-22 late in the second quarter, the Bruins stormed out to an 11-0 run to close the half.

“Couple of tips and a couple of stops,” Tisa said. “We feed off that energy. We fed off that energy and just one of those things when it all came together for us in that one span to finish the second quarter.”

Watkins started the run with a bucket. Smith converted one of two free throws. McPherson scored on an inbound play then grabbed a defensive rebounds and went the length of the floor for a pull-up 3-pointer.

The Bruins had the lead and were just getting started.

Brighton scored the first eight points of the third quarter. McPherson’s steal and layup made it a double-digit game for the first time at 41-31. Next trip down the floor, Smith nailed a triple for a 44-33 advantage. Brighton did not allow Churchville within single digits for the remainder of the contest.

“At halftime, we made a quick adjustment on defense and how we were going to defend Jason Gibbs,” Tisa said of Churchville’s senior guard who came into the averaging nearly 23 points per game. “We really did not want him to touch the ball as much as he was in the first half.

Gibbs scored all 16 of his points in the first half.

“We knew that if we made him work extra hard to touch the ball, that they were going to need other guys to step up.

“It led to some turnovers. It led to some fast breaks, and we stopped turning the ball over in the third quarter which led to a lot of easy looks for us.”

JT Snyder capped the third quarter with a buzzer-beater of his own. Brighton led 61-38.

Nine players in all scored for Brighton (5-1) with Andrew Kotrides (5), Cole Fikes (4), Ethan Amidon (2), Jayden Freeman (1) and Jack Scott (1) contributing to the offense.

“These guys don’t care who scores,” Tisa said. “They don’t care who gets the credit. They just want to win. When you have that mindset of just wanting to win, getting after it together on defense, it’s tough to beat.”

Brighton fell to Penfield, 55-48 last Friday.

“We played good defense against them,” Tisa said of the game against the Patriots. “They made shots. We didn’t. Tonight, we played good defense. We made shots, forced some turnovers which we weren’t able to do against Penfield. Great team effort tonight.”

Gibbs scored back-to-back buckets. Michael Sardou followed with a trey, and Joaquon Thomas flushed a putback to cap a 9-0 run and a 29-21 Churchville lead with less than three minutes remaining in the second quarter.

Sardou matched Gibbs with 16 points to lead C-C (3-1). Thomas had nine points. Ricardo Legares had seven points. TJ Finnigan added a free throw.

The game featured a head-coaching matchup between Tisa and longtime friend, Tim Miller. The two started playing basketball together in third grade at St. Charles Borromeo and continued all the way through high school at Greece Athena.

Trygve Watkins throws down an alley-oop during Tuesday’s action. (Photo: RON ANDREWS)

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