Shots falling again for Granger's Tapusoa in win over Colts

By his own admission, Granger's Isaiah Tapusoa had been in a bit of a shooting slump. He said that after the Christmas break the usual open looks had not been falling. It was almost as if there were a lid on the basket.

That was before his game against Cottonwood on Friday night.

The junior guard broke free of his shooting woes as he drained seven 3-pointers and scored 24 points to help lead the Lancers over the Colts 67-61 in overtime for a Region 6 victory.

"I got my confidence back," Tapusoa said. "I hit my first shot, and it felt really good, so I guess I decided to just keep on shooting. My teammates were getting me the ball with open looks, and I kept on knocking them down."

The beauty in Tapusoa's big night was not only how efficiently he was with his shooting — he connected on 7-of-10 from behind the 3-point line — or when the big shots came — three of his bombs came in the fourth

quarter and one in the overtime — but how he really did everything within the flow of the offense and used the threat of his outside shot to help set up teammates as well.

"There are a lot of players who can just sit outside and keep casting it up," Lancers coach Justin Nelson said. "But Isaiah did a good job of setting things up after hitting a couple. He took people off the dribble and got some good penetration. He found his open teammates, and he got the defense scrambling."

Scrambling would best describe play in the fourth quarter.

Granger got off to a hot start thanks to Cameron Anfinsen's play inside — he scored 12 of his 16 points in the first half — and the Lancers led 25-22 at the break.

They extended that lead to eight in the first two minutes of the fourth quarter at 45-37 after back-to-back threes by Tapusoa. But that was when the Colts fought back.

Led by Ben Canevari's 11 fourth-quarter points, Cottonwood tied the score at 55 with just under one minute to play. Marcus Dahle, who finished with 14 points, missed a shot at the buzzer for Cottonwood, and the two teams were headed for the extra period.

"I told everyone during the break that there was no way we were going to lose," Tapusoa said.

He backed up his words as on the Lancers' first two possessions he drew a double team before finding center Joe Brady wide open under the hoop. After a couple of free throws from Ray Tapusoa, Isaiah hit his last three to put Granger up 64-57 with 1:35 to play and effectively end the game.

"I'm really happy for Isaiah," Nelson said. "He has had some off-the-court issues lately, and those appear to be behind him. Hopefully, this is just the beginning of what we can expect from him the rest of the season."

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