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Hovland does in Grizz By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings With trey after painful trey, Beau Hovland gave the Ashland High fans a glimpse of what could have been. Hovland, who grew up in Ashland before moving to Medford his eighth grade year, hit seven 3-pointers including three in the fourth quarter en route to a season-high 28 points Tuesday night, lifting North Medford to a 59-55 Southern Oregon Conference victory over the Grizzlies at Mountain Avenue gym. North Medford senior guard Jeff Deline (top) tries to out-fox Ashland senior guard Christopher Presicci for a loose ball during the 59-55 Black Tornado victory, Tuesday night at Mountain Avenue gym. Ashland Daily Tidings/DENISE BARATTA Hovland hit 7 of 12 from behind the arc and 9 of 17 overall, netting 13 points in the fourth quarter alone. The junior guard also burned the Grizz with two game-breaking steals in the final 90 seconds - one with 1:27 to go that led to his fastbreak lay-up and a 52-49 Tornado lead, and another moments later that all but sealed it. "Coming back to Ashland felt good," said Hovland, who paid a visit to the Grizzly locker room after the game. "They're all yelling at me, the crowd, I get it every time I come back. It feels good. I never expected to do it." "The only other time I remember anything like that," North coach Tim Sam added, "he made 10 during a summer league game against (Crater)." The win allowed North (5-1 SOC) to move into a tie with Grants Pass for second place in the league standings, one game behind South Medford. Ashland (8-8 overall, 1-5 SOC), fresh off a heartbreaking two-point loss to Crater, dropped its third straight since the Jan. 14 win at Roseburg. Hovland's heroics allowed the Tornado to survive a 38 percent shooting night (19-for-50) and a 10-point game by star post Ryan Lucas, who came in averaging a conference-best 20.2 points per game. Also for North, senior guard Jeff Deline added 11 points and 6-6 junior post Dan O'Brien pulled down a team-high eight rebounds. The Grizzlies were led by senior guard Nick Palmesano and senior post Clint Bryan, each of whom dropped in 15 points. Bryan, who picked up his fourth foul late in the third, hit 7 of 9 shots and grabbed four boards, senior guard Bryan Clevenger added 11 points and two steals and senior guard Christopher Presicci chipped in four rebounds and two steals. In a game that saw 13 ties, Hovland broke the last one on a fadeaway 3-pointer with 3:33 to go, giving his team a 48-45 advantage. Ashland cut the lead to one twice over the next two minutes on lay-ups by Palmesano and Bryan, but couldn't get over the hump. Their best chance came after North's Brian Clifton traveled with 1:40 left - the Tornado's eighth and final turnover of the game. But with the ball and a chance to take the lead for the first time since the six-minute mark, Palmesano threw a careless crosscourt pass that was picked off by Hovland and quickly turned into two the other way. North increased its lead to five on a pair of Hovland free throws with 51.9 seconds left and Ashland never got closer than four again. "Well, of course, in the end of any game where you're behind you start taking chances," North coach Tim Sam said. "And if you're the team that's ahead when the other team's taking chances, which we were, it gives you some openings offensively. So we were able to capitalize on a couple open shots." The game was tight throughout - North took its biggest lead of the night by seven with four seconds left - but the Black Tornado were somehow able to stay in control despite getting outrebounded by the shorter Grizzlies 31-25 and out-shot by the home team 42 percent (23-for-55) to 38 percent. Some of that was a result of North's 14-4 scoring advantage at the free throw line - the Tornado took 22 free throws to Ashland's 7, and the Grizzlies didn't go to the line in the second half. But the Grizzlies gave most of the credit to the sharp-shooting, speed-burning Hovland, who hit two 3's in the first, one in the second and one in the third before his fourth-quarter explosion. The Grizzlies used a zone most of the night, but still managed to at least get a hand in Hovland's face on most of his bombs. It didn't matter. "He's a good athlete and he's an OK basketball player," Clevenger said. "But I think that everyone in this locker room and theirs can agree that he had the night of his life tonight. I mean, he goes out and scores like five, seven a night, and somehow he hits (28). I don't know where that came from." Ashland led 13-11 after one on the strength of three Bryan buckets and 17-15 midway through the second before North got hot. The Tornado closed the half on a 7-2 run, the last three on Hovland's old fashioned three-point play, to take a 30-25 lead into halftime. Hovland's 3 with 5:14 left in the third gave North a 33-27 lead, but five straight points by Palmesano, including a trey with 2:55 to go in the quarter, got the Grizzlies back within one. Bryan's right-corner trey allowed Ashland to grab a 39-38 lead heading into the fourth quarter and Clevenger gave Ashland its final lead, 43-42, on a jumper with six minutes left. The loss was Ashland's third narrow defeat to a conference foe. The Grizzlies have now lost to South Medford (55-48), Crater (52-50) and North Medford by a combined 13 points. "They played their hearts out," Ashland coach Rick Cornelius said from another bummed out Grizz locker room. "They truly played their hearts out tonight, and that has to stand for something. The kids are getting tired of moral victories, it's real hard at this end to do it. We've been at that door, we keep knocking on that door and we want to find a way in, we want to find a way to win. You know, we're the hard luck team in the SOC right now." Girls Basketball At Medford, halfway through the Southern Oregon Conference slate, the North Medford girls basketball team picked a good time to turn in its best performance of the season. The Black Tornado held Ashland, the highest-scoring team in the SOC, in check and led nearly wire-to-wire during a 50-34 victory at the North gym on Tuesday. North led by 15 at the half and upped its advantage to as many as 20 points in the third quarter en route to forging a second-place tie in conference play with the Grizzlies and South Medford. "North played a very aggressive game and we came out a little flat," Ashland coach Steve Humann said. "I take responsibility. I thought we were ready and we just were not." A 12-2 advantage on the scoreboard in the second quarter helped put Ashland away. "We wore them out a little bit in the second with our press, and we did a good job of pushing the ball," North Medford coach Tim Karrick said. "Overall, everybody played well tonight. It was probably our best game of the season." North (10-7, 5-2 SOC) also held Marla Morin, the second-leading scorer in the SOC behind the Tornado's Kerstin Mellbye, to 13 points, more than four points under her average. Hilary Huyett, who had averaged 17 points a game for the Grizzlies (12-5, 5-2 SOC), was held to four. "They were collapsing four people on Marla and they were pressuring Hilary every time she had the ball," Humann said. Morin added seven rebounds and two steals, Grizz senior post Julia Sobolik had three steals and Huyett added four assists and two steals. For North, Kailey Bostwick had 15 points and five assists. Mellbye added 14 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, and Mellisa Eastwold produced 10 points. Michelle Westermann also hauled in 10 boards, and Caitlin Seeley played a solid floor game with three steals and four assists. Ashland turned the ball over 21 times and was held to 35 percent shooting (12-for-34), while North shot 42 percent (21-for-50) while getting up nine more shots and outrebounding Ashland 29-25. "We will come back from adversity, which we always have," Humann said. "I saw it in their eyes last night. We'll come back. We'd like to be out in front (of the conference), but since we're not we have to face reality." The AHS girls wrap up the first round of SOC play Friday night at Eagle Point (2-5 SOC). The Grizz boys will host the Eagles (0-6 SOC) the same night. LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. OTHER: Road Cams Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -