Taylor spoils Oracle season opener
By John J. Dunn Contributing sportswriter

Head Coach Brian Tonsoni's second Delphi boys' basketball team opened the 2007-08 season at Taylor Saturday suffering a 69-54 defeat in a hard-fought battle against a much taller host team.

It was a game of runs, with the Oracles making several spurts to keep the game close most of the way.

The Titans, whose starting frontline measured 6'5", 6'5" and 6'4", scored the game's first seven points before Oracle senior sharpshooter Michael Myers put Delphi on the board with a 17-foot jumper from the wing.

Myers continued to scorch the nets with 12 points in the first quarter, including two three-pointers, as Delphi closed the quarter with a 7-0 run of its own to take a 17-14 lead.

Taylor again scored three consecutive field goals to open the second quarter before another Myers' jumper closed the gap to 20-19.

Another 8-2 Titan spurt spread the lead to nine at 30- 21 before freshman guard Austin Hawn connected on a 3-pointer from the right wing to close within six.

The Titans answered right back with a three of their own and again traded buckets with the Oracles before taking a 36-26 lead into the half.

Hot-shooting would continue to be the theme of the second half as Taylor opened with four quick points to boost the lead to 14. But the feisty Oracles would not go away, trailing 43-28, Delphi struck back with three consecutive threes ¯ two from sophomore point guard Justin Snider and another from Myers - to close to within six at 43-37.

It was the closest that they would get the rest of the way as Taylor went on a 13-0 run to end the third quarter with a now commanding 56-37 lead.

Four threes in the fourth quarter, three from Myers and one from senior forward Dustin Oliver, would keep the Oracles within striking distance but was not enough to overcome a 49 percent shooting effort from the Titans, including 9-of-18 from behind the arc.

Delphi connected on 11 three-pointers of its own to help keep the game close, but was also outrebounded 35-22.

Myers led all scorers with 27 points, including 6-of-14 three-pointers, to go along with a team-high eight rebounds and five steals.

Oliver finished with eight points, while Snider had a game-high nine assists to go along with his six points. Hawn added five points, while Kory Banes and Kyle Bender had four apiece.

"We fought hard and competed," Tonsoni said. "We found ways to come back several times during the game and that is something we can build on."

"I also felt that we shared the ball well tonight, but we can improve our shooting percentage a bit and work on our transition defense," he said.

JV wins opener

Seferino Cervantes led all scorers with 10 points on 4- of-4 shooting, including 2-of- 2 from 3-point range to lead the Delphi JV to an easy 40- 14 victory. The Oracles outscored Taylor 20-7 in each half.

Paul Zink added nine points and six rebounds, sharing team-high board honors with Tanner Cripe, who also scored six points. Dustin Salyer finished with eight points, while Kris Bender added five and A.J. Erskin two.

Delphi will next travel to Tipton on Friday night with the JV starting at 6:30 p.m. and to Frontier on Saturday with the JV tip-off at 6 p.m.