MEN’S BASKETBALL

The HU men’s basketball team returned a favor Tuesday night to the Bethel Pilots by handing their visitors an 87-84 loss at Platt Arena. BU got the best of the Foresters, 96-89, in their first go round back in November.

While the Pilots (12-11, 5-6) never led, they were never to be counted out. Huntington’s first of multiple double-digit leads came on the heels of five straight points from Hank Pulver to cap off a 12-4 run for a 31-21 advantage with nine minutes left in the first half.

The Foresters’ lead hovered around ten points the rest of the frame with one of the few exceptions coming just before halftime when the Pilots rattled off five consecutive points to head into intermission down by eight at 44-36.

Bethel kept their deficit to single digits through the first five minutes of the second period until Spencer Ballinger’s putback at the 14:33 mark finally pushed HU’s lead back to ten at 58-48. It was the start of a 7-0 run that gave Alford’s crew their largest advantage of the contest at 63-48.

Huntington’s lead was still 15, 70-55, by the midway point but the Pilots spent the rest of the game chipping away at the difference to eventually whittle it down to a single point at 85-84 with :08 ticks remaining.

Nathan Aerts, who was a handful all night, scored 11 points during the Pilots’ methodical comeback including a rebound bucket that pulled his team within one with eight seconds to go but it was Zac Owens who nearly played spoiler. The former Forester drained back-to-back threes, the first with 36 seconds to go and then another with 22 seconds to go, to keep his team in the hunt for a come-from-behind win.

Fortunately, Bethel’s flurry of activity in the final 36 seconds wouldn’t be enough thanks to a heads up play by Zach Goodline who found Mitchell Wilson for a layup in transition with just under a minute to go that gave HU a little wiggle room at 83-76 after which the Foresters scored four points from the free throw line to stave off their visitors for the win.

Goodline paced HU with a career- and game-best 29 points but his contributions spanned well beyond just scoring. He also posted nine assists, eight rebounds and two steals. Caleb Middlesworth poured in 18 points while Ben Humrichous and Pulver chipped in ten apiece. Pulver also pulled down eight boards to share team-high rebounding honors with Goodline.

Aerts finished with 28 points and 16 boards for the double double. Owens dropped in 22 points while Brandon Hunt tossed in 11.

“I thought this was a great team win,” said Coach Kory Alford. “We were able to score efficiently all night and got some key stops when we needed them.

“I thought Zach was phenomenal. He was incredibly steady for us and handled their full court pressure well. Our bench stepped up and provided some scoring and strong defense.”

With this win, the Foresters improve to 16-7 overall which includes a 5-6 record in CL action. Next up is a trip to Mount Vernon on Saturday. Tip-off is slated for 3:00 p.m.