Oracles beat North White in tourney consolation
Myers, Snider earn All-Tournament honors
By John J. Dunn Contributing sportswriter

Perhaps it wasn't the bestplayed game of the season, but it was indeed a win for the Oracles Saturday night against North White in the consolation game of the White County Tournament played at Delphi.

Tri-County defeated Frontier 59-47 in the championship to win the White County Tournament for the third consecutive year, beating Frontier each time in the title game.

But if there was ever such a thing as an ugly win, Saturday night's 54-41 victory over the Vikings just might have been one of them.

Playing against a 1-9 North White team, which has now lost its last nine games in a row, Delphi did not appear as sharp as it has been in recent games and did not appear to be on the same page much of the time.

The Oracles again seemed to struggle with shot selection, ball movement and decisionmaking on the offensive end while giving up 10 offensive rebounds and battling early foul trouble at both ends of the floor.

Delphi committed 17 turnovers against only eight assists during the contest in a time when teams operating on all cylinders strive for at least a 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio ¯ Saturday night was just the opposite.

"We struggled this weekend with execution," head coach Brian Tonsoni said. "And we have to find ways to handle pressure defenses." "But we win a game when playing poorly on Saturday night, and we did fight hard at the end of the Tri-County game on Friday," he said. "Those are positives to build on."

On the positive side, Delphi did have a season-high 15 steals against the Vikings and shot .500 percent from the field (20-of-40).

The Oracles are now 4-1 on the season when shooting at least .450 percent from the field (only loss came on a lastsecond shot vs. Clinton Prairie in a game that Delphi shot .472 percent on Dec. 14) and are 0-6 otherwise.

The victory also avenged a heartbreaking 37-36 loss in the final seconds to North White in last year's WCT consolation game played at Tri- County. It also gave the Oracles their fourth win on the year, doubling last year's total for the entire season.

Not taking any win for granted, Delphi (4-7) did what it needed to in order to come away with a victory.

After six lead changes and three ties during the game's first five minutes, the Oracles took the lead for good at 13-10 on an Austin Hawn threepointer with 2:59 to play and would use an 11-3 run to close out the 1st quarter with a 21- 13 lead.

Led by Justin Snider's seven points in the quarter, the teams would play an even 2nd quarter with Delphi maintaining its 8-point lead at 32-24 at the intermission.

The Oracles would then get six points from Dustin Oliver and closed the 3rd period on an 8-3 run to extend the lead to 13 points at 44-31 entering the final quarter.

Another Oliver basket gave Delphi its biggest lead of the game at 15 to start the 4th quarter, which it would match two other times during the final stanza. NW would get no closer than 11 at 48-37 with 4:56 to play en route to the 13- point final deficit.

Snider used several drives to the basket, in addition to 9- of-10 shooting from the charity stripe to lead Delphi with 17 points. Michael Myers, who was plagued with foul trouble, was the only other Oracle to finish in double-figures with 11, along with a teamhigh tying six rebounds.

Delphi, which has now won four-of-its-last six games, also received 8 points and 6 boards from Oliver, six points from Kory Banes, five each from both Hawn and Matt Lewis and two points from Kyle Bender.

Vs. Tri-County

Despite a frantic and valiant 4th quarter comeback which saw the Oracles cut the lead to two with 34.3 seconds remaining after trailing by 11 points with less than two minutes left, Delphi was unable to overtake Tri-County in the opening game of the White County Tournament, losing 54-49.

A flurry of action at the end of the game which included a rare 4-point play from Lewis, who was fouled after making a trey from the top of the key with 54.9 seconds to play to pull Delphi to within four at 47-43, was not enough in the rematch game between the two schools.

The Oracles beat the Cavaliers, then ranked #15 in the State's Class A poll, 53-39 on Dec. 15, although Tri-County was without the services of starting power forward Jason Stitz .

Delphi was able to pull within two points twice, first at 49-47 on an Oliver basket at 34.3 and then again at 51-49 after a Banes hoop with 23 seconds to play, but would get no closer as Tri-County (5-5) scored its last eight points from the free throw line, The Cavs went 8-of-11 from the stripe in the last two minutes to seal it.

After the Oracles jumped out to a 4-0 lead on consecutive baskets from Myers to open the game, the 1st quarter became a seesaw contest with six lead changes and the Cavs clinging onto an 11-10 lead at the break.

TC extended it to 26-22 at halftime using a 12-5 run over the last 5:50 to go up by four at the intermission.

Delphi's last lead of the game was at 17-16 before the Cavaliers took the lead for good at 18-17 with 4:31 left in the 2nd quarter.

The Oracles did cut it back to one at 34-33 on a Lewis hoop with 12 seconds to play in the 3rd quarter before TC scored a trey near the horn to go back up 37-33 at the break.

The Cavs, who finished 22- 2 last season, scored the first six points to start the 4th quarter to take a 10-point lead at 43-33 and would hold off the feisty Oracle comeback for the victory.

Myers led the Oracles with 16 points before fouling out, followed by Snider's 12. Oliver added 9 points and a team-high 9 rebounds, while Lewis had 6 points and a game-high 6 assists. Hawn, Banes and Bender each finished with two points.

Delphi will next host Sheridan on Friday night with the JV contest starting at 6:30 p.m, before playing host to Cass on Saturday with the JV game scheduled for tip-off at 6.