Warriors Take Down Thunder In Fast-Paced Scrub Classic

If the Thunder were tired from their triple-overtime win on February 16 to earn a spot in the Green Hornets boys scrub finals on February 17, they certainly didn’t show it. Like they had all season, the league’s second-seeded regular-season team fought every game until the final buzzer. They faced off against the league’s No. 16-seeded team, the Warriors, for a classic scrub thriller — but it was the Warriors who claimed the championship with a 40-39 win over the Thunder at Severn School before hundreds of fans.

The Thunder poured on the offense for the first 16 minutes and held an 8-point lead at halftime. The Warriors’ high-scoring best-friend tandem of Chris Flynn and Collin Taylor helped their team battle back to within one point after three quarters, 29-27, to remind the Thunder that in scrub basketball there is no such thing as a comfortable lead.

The fourth quarter was a blur of fast-breaks and back-and-forth scoring chances. With just one minute left in the game, the Warriors, who had trailed the entire game, took the lead. With just seconds remaining, the Thunder went to the free-throw line, needing to sink both shots of a one-and-one bonus to tie the game, but they could only come up with one. The scrappy Warriors won the game 40-39 with persistence.

Flynn, a senior at Mount St. Joseph High School, said this was his first year playing scrub. “Collin [Taylor] and I are best friends and we’ve played basketball together since we were kids,” said Flynn. “I wanted to play scrub so I could play one more year with him. We’re so glad we could win!”

After the game, Taylor said, “We knew [the Thunder] had a really tough game yesterday to get to the finals. They came ready to play, but so did we.”

Flynn led all scorers with 14 points. Nate Carey had 12 points, and Taylor had 11 for the Warriors. Addison Garrett and Garret Taylor also contributed points. Daniel Carey, Ryan Harrington, Matthew Macantoni and Tyler Pfisterer rounded out the roster. Jim Taylor is the Warriors head coach.

Alec Foxen lead the Thunder with 10 points. Jake Hillard added 8 points, Jackson Dearing had 7 points, and Chris Roth and Daniel Seeman each added 5. Aiden Byrd, Dylan Hanson, and Parker Cummings and Ty Cummings completed the squad. The Thunder were coached by Chris Seeman.

Barry Herman has been the boys scrub league director for the last two seasons, and he has been a head coach in the league for the last five seasons.

“We had a really great season this year with lots of parity,” he said. “The 28th seed (out of 32 teams) made it to the Final Four, and the champion was the 16th seed. I think the coaches and players all had a lot of fun, which is what scrub is all about.”