Bliss begins new era at Foard with victory over Patton

By: Allen Haynes | Hickory Daily Record
Published: November 25, 2011

NEWTON --

The Fred T. Foard boy’s basketball team began a new era with Rob Bliss as their head basketball coach Friday night at Jerry Copas gymnasium.

The Tigers welcomed Bliss with a 67-45 win over visiting Patton.

After a sluggish first half by both teams, Foard took control of the game in the third quarter by outscoring the Panthers 19-0 during a stretch run that took the lead from 28-25 Foard to a 47-25 lead by the Tigers before Jacob Hudson stopped the run with a free throw for Patton.

“You’re always glad to win your first one,” Bliss said. “I thought we played with a pretty good effort, but we’ve still got a long way to go from an execution standpoint.”

The 19-0 run in the third quarter proved to be the difference in the game and Bliss couldn’t have been happier with his team’s play during that stretch.

“In that little stretch, we were able to get the ball and kick it up the floor and then get it to the rim and finish it,” said Bliss. “We didn’t finish real well in the first half, but in the second half we did a good job of finishing it up.”

Foard struggled in the early going as Patton got off to an 11-9 first quarter lead by taking advantage of seven Tigers’ turnovers.

Patton stretched the lead out to 17-13 on a basket by Jayquan Lipford before Foard went on an 8-0 spurt for a 21-17 lead. The Tigers led 26-23 at the half.

Everything seemed to change for the Tigers in the third quarter as they began forcing turnovers instead of losing the ball.

Foard forced 10 Patton turnovers in the quarter and managed to translate those into points on every occasion.

“I think we took a little better care of the ball in the second half than we did in the first half,” Bliss said. “We’ve tried to stress better passing and our passing still has to improve night in and night out. That’s an area offensively we’re trying to improve on.”

Patton managed to cut the lead under 20 three times in the fourth quarter but the Tigers responded on each occasion and held on for the double-digit win.

“One thing I can say about these kids is that they are willing to play hard,” Bliss said. “We get after it pretty well in practice and if we can get some refinement on the offensive end to go with that defensive effort, we’ll slowly but surely continue to show improvement and growth.”

Jordan Tucker led the Tigers with 18 points, while Tyler Dickens had 12 points, Tre Robinson 11 points and Brice Falgout added 10 points.

Patton was led by Jarron Baker with 15 points.

FRED T. FOARD 64, PATTON 47

The Fred T. Foard girls also debuted with a new head coach in Brad Mangum and delivered a win in their first game together.

After a tight battle resulted in a 15-all first quarter, the Tigers outscored the visiting Panthers in the second quarter 14-5 to lead 29-20 at the half.

Chelsea Turner scored 14 of her game-high 16 points in the first half for the Tigers.

Foard continued to pull away in the third quarter increasing its lead to 44-31 before outscoring the Panthers again in the fourth quarter 20-16 to earn the win.

Brooke Robinson, Kayla Whitworth and Hannah Sheen added nine points apiece for Foard.

Breann Tallent led Patton with 13 points.