Photo by Bob Hockenbrock
By Kenny Varner

COCOLAMUS – Adding another chapter to their distinguished rivalry.

Saturday night in front of a large crowd of Juniata County sports fans , the Juniata and East Juniata boys basketball team rounded out a night of rivalry with a barn burner of a contest as the Indians defeated East Juniata in the final minutes to take home a hard fought 53-44 victory at East Juniata high school.

“They really hung in there. We always talk to the kids about how basketball is in spurts. You’ll have your spurt and they’ll have theirs. They had their spurt at the beginning of the game,” said Juniata coach Al Ream. “We fought back and got the lead. We had one right before halftime. We held it and they came back. Then we came back. We talk about that in practice a lot. You’re going to tough days, you’re going to have slow days you just got to take what the defense is giving you.”

Heading into the final stanza, the Indians were holding fast to a 40-32 contest as the intensity would be raised another notch from the previous three quarters.

“This is my second year coaching and I never would have dreamed that I had the amount of heart I have on this team, night in and night out,” said East Juniata coach. “We had a game the other day we were down by 40 at one point. They battled back. You would have thought it was a tie game for a state championship. Every second that group is on the floor they give it there all. You can’t ask them to do any more than that.”

Juniata struck first when Jasper Shepps, who finished the night with 16, got the scoring started with a drive and bucket in the lane.

But the Tigers had an answer for Shepp’s bucket as they were able to work the ball into the hands of Sam Kopacki. Kopacki lined up his shot from down town and hit a clutch three-point shot, cutting it to a 42-35 contest with 6:28 left.

The East Juniata defense forced an Indians’ turnover and proceeded to close the deficit.

This time, Jaden May would step up and take the ball strong to the hole and get fouled in the process.

May hit the shot from the charity stripe, giving his team momentum, trailing only 42-38.

Another turnover for the Indians on the following possession gave the ball back in May’s hands. May’s again was fouled and hit one-of-two from the charity stripe, making it just a 3-point Indians lead.

On the following possession, Swailes was fouled and went to the free throw line and was able to extend Juniata’s lead back to five, hitting 2-of-2 from the foul line.

Wrett Smith, who finished his night posting a game-high 20 points, sent the East Juniata fans into a frenzy as she drained a triple and cutting the deficit to just two points with 3:46 remaining.

Shepps extended the lead back to three as he hit 1-of-2 from the free throw line.

Smith, sent things back to a 2-point advantage for Juniata as he hit 1-of-2 from the line after being fouled.

Swailes continued to give his team clutch shots as he hit a tough runner in traffic to extend the visitor’s lead to 47-43.

May battled back to take a foul in his drive in the lane, he was successful by hitting 1-of-2.

But things started to unravel for the Tigers as they would get called for a technical, giving the advantage to the Indians’ shooters.

From there, the Indians finished the game on a 4-2 run en route to Juniata’s hard fought victory.

In the first, Caden Swailes put the first points on the board with a field goal to get the contest going.

East Juniata rallied back to tie things at two picking up a lay up and a free throw attempt by Sam Kopacki. The shot was good but the free throw attempt was unsuccessful, tying it two.

But the rest of the quarter belonged to East Juniata as they went on a dominating 14-2 run. In that run, Kopacki tallied eight while teammate Smith had three.

The Tigers took the lead going into the second quarter 16-11.

But the Juniata defense took control over the Tigers shooters in the second allowing only five points be scored in it.

When the two teams went into the intermission, the Indians took the lead 24-21.