Oracles lose in double-overtime
By John J. Dunn Contributing sportswriter

Royal winners Delphi Community High School held its winter homecoming basketball game Jan. 18 against Sheridan. Delphi won the game. Two students also came out winners when they were crowned king and queen during halftime. Pictured are the royal pair, senior Kyle Stonebraker and junior Misty Hunt. Photo by Portraits by Lori

Coming off of an emotional and hard-fought win over county-rival Carroll Friday night, most wondered how Delphi would respond in its next outing back on the road Saturday against conferencefoe Rensselaer.

After a relatively flat first half of play, the Oracles did not disappoint anyone with their effort in the second half, although almost all were disappointed in the final result, a 65-54 loss in double-overtime.

As some might have expected after a big win in a rival game, Delphi did indeed come out a bit slowly, not scoring its first field goal until reserve Kory Banes' basket four minutes into the game.

But Justin Snider's threepoint desperation-heave from just inside the half-court line at the buzzer to end the first quarter pulled the Oracles to within two points at 12-10.

Although the Bombers were able to maintain the lead, Delphi pulled to within one at 18- 17 after an Austin Hawn three-pointer with 2:02 left in the half. A final 7-0 Rensselaer spurt opened a then-game-high eight point Bomber lead at 25- 17 at the intermission.

The Oracles would then begin to chip away at the lead during the third quarter, pulling to within two points on three occasion's - following a Snider trey at 31-29 with 3:47 remaining, again at 33-31 after a Michael Myers basket with 1:38 to play, and finally at 35- 33 on a Banes rebound putback to end the period.

Delphi would briefly tie the contest for the first time since the onset at 35 on a Myers jump shot with 6:11 left in the final quarter before allowing a three-pointer 30 seconds later to put the Bombers back on top.

The Oracles kept fighting back, taking their first lead of the game at 44-43 following a Banes lay-up with 1:27 left to play. Another Bomber three followed with a minute to play to put Rensselaer back up.

Myers was fouled driving to the basket with 40.8 seconds left and converted both free throws to tie the score at 46. Delphi was able to hold off a flurry of Bomber attempts to force the first overtime period.

After Rensselaer struck first with a lay-up to go ahead 48- 46, the Oracles then grabbed some momentum and went on a 6-0 run on consecutive baskets from Banes and Kyle Bender, followed by two free throws from Banes to take a game-high lead of four points at 52-48 with 1:56 to play.

The Bombers would then score four points over the next minute to knot it back up at 52, before another Bender lay-up from the post put Delphi back in front 54-52 with just :40 left.

But those would be the last of the Oracle points for the remainder of the first overtime and for all of the second overtime.

Rensselaer tied it back at 54 on a basket with 31 seconds to play, and Delphi would miss two bonus free throws with 2.4 seconds left to force the second overtime period, which was dominated by the Bombers from the start.

"We did not play with energy in the first half and that cost us the game," Oracle head coach Brian Tonsoni said. "We fought hard to get back in the game and could not find a way to put it away."

The Oracles (6-11) made just 6-of-14 free throws (.429 percent) during the contest, despite entering the game at .668 percent as a team, and .739 percent among the starting five.

By contrast, Rensselaer (8-7) was an impressive 14-of-17 (.824 percent) from the free throw line.

Moreover, Delphi was just 4- of-10 from the line during the games crucial fourth quarter and two overtime periods, compared to 8-of-11 for the Bombers during the same crunch-time. With a better effort in the first half, the game would not have come down to the late discrepancies at the charity stripe.

Myers led the Oracles with 16 points, followed by Bender's 10. Banes finished with 9 points and a team-high 8 rebounds, while Snider had 8 points, Lewis 5 and Hawn and Dustin Oliver had 3 apiece.

JV wins again

The Delphi JV team continues to make some noise and achieve success of its own, now winning 7-of-its-last-8 games with an impressive 34- 21 victory at Rensselaer.

Paul Zink and Dustin Salyer led the way 10 points apiece, while Kris Bender added 7 points and a good all-around floor-game.

Delphi will play only one game next week, traveling to face Hoosier Conference-rival Twin Lakes for a Thursday night game in order to work around the girls' basketball sectionals. JV game will tipoff is at 6 p.m.