Lightning Complete Weekend Sweep of Grand Rapids
Published on December 17, 2002 under Continental Basketball Association 2 (CBA 2)
Rockford Lightning News Release
Sometimes in the CBA, the difference between a 5-2 quarter point loss and a 6-1 quarter point victory can come down to one shot. On Sunday Ronnie Fields hit that one shot to give the Lightning a 131-130 victory and a weekend sweep of the Grand Rapids Hoops.
Down by 5 with 33 seconds remaining, the Lightning started their comeback with 3 pointers by Albert White and David Harrison. Harrison's three pointer came after Ronnie Fields grabbed the rebound and found Harrison with the assist just before falling out of bounds. The Harrison 3 pointer cut the Hoops lead to 130-129. After a Hoops turnover, Fields continued his late game heroics by hitting the fade-away jumper with 4.7 seconds left giving the Lightning a 131-130, 6-1 quarter point victory.
Albert White led the Lightning for the second straight night with 32 points in 25 minutes. Harrison added 24 on his 27th birthday, while Fields finished with 21. The Lightning starting big men also produced big numbers. John Mueller scored a career high 18 points to go along with 10 rebounds. Livan Pyfrom scored just 2 points, but collected 20 rebounds and 4 blocked shots in Sunday's win. Larry Ayuso and Alex Scales scored 38 and 32 respectively to lead the Hoops. Grand Rapids also received 29 points and 20 rebounds from Jerald Honeycutt.
On Saturday night, the Lightning used a season high 34-point effort by Albert White to record a 128-123 victory over Grand Rapids. David Harrison added 30 and Joe Crispin contributed with 14 points and a Lightning season high 15 assists in the 5-2 quarter point victory.
The Lightning improves to 10-3 and is the only American Conference team with a winning record. The bolts are back in action Thursday at Gary. The Lightning return home with back-to-back games against the Steelheads on December 27th and 28th.
BOLT NOTES:
TREND SETTING: The Lightning continued three impressive trends this weekend. They improved to 6-1 at home, 7-1 against the American Conference and 9-1 in weekend games. Grand Rapids meantime is 4-0 vs. the Gary Steelheads, but 2-7 against every other team (including 0-3 vs. the Lightning).
IF IT'S NOT BROKE, DON'T FIX IT: The Lightning is the only CBA team that has used the same starting lineup in every game this season. Carson Cunningham, David Harrison, Ronnie Fields, John Mueller, and Livan Pyfrom have started every game, leading the Lightning to a 10-3 start.
STEALING THE SPOTLIGHT: Ronnie Fields started the season tied for 6th place on the Lightning all-time steals list, he has now jumped up to third place. Fields has 36 steals on the season and 183 for his Lightning Career. Only Fred Cofield (237) and Brent Chrarmichael (231) have more. Fields has also moved up to 10th in the Lightning All-Time Points list (1274), 9th in the Games Played list (103), 7th on the Free Throws Attempted list (393) and 7th on the Free Throws Made list (297).
MR PRODUCTIVITY: Over the weekend, Albert White scored 66 points in just 56 minutes. On the season, White is averaging an astounding 43.6 points per 48 minutes. That not only leads the CBA but it's over 10 points higher than 2nd place Corey Hightower (33.2 points per 48 minutes). The Lightning's David Harrison (33.1) and Ronnie Fields (32.3) rank 3rd and 4th in the league respectively in that category.
LIVAN IT UP: Half-way through the 4th quarter the stat-line on Livan Pyfrom read 0 points, 4 blocks and 18 boards. Pyfrom would ruin what could have been the best 0-point game in CBA history when he scored the follow basket giving the Lightning a 123-121 lead. Pyfrom finished the night with 2 points and 20 rebounds (7 offensive).
DAIL 10-10-220: The Grand Rapids may have fell short on Saturday, but they did set a long distance record in the process. The Hoops attempted 39 3-point shots in the Lightning's 128-123 victory that breaks the previous CBA record of 37 3-point attempts by the Oklahoma City Calvary on February 1st, 1997.
SAY IT AIN'T AYUSO: Larry Ayuso took a large percentage of those three point Shots. The Hoops Guard was 11 of 31 from beyond the arc over the weekend. Ayuso scored 33 points on Saturday and 38 on Sunday and he has averaged 36.3 points in three games against the Lightning this season
HONEY TURNOVER?: Jerald Honeycutt turned the ball over 9 times on Saturday, the most by a Lightning opponent this season. Honeycutt followed that up with an 8-turnover performance on Sunday. Jerald also did a lot of good for the Hoops, combining for 57 points and 40 rebounds over the weekend.
ADVANTAGE LIGHTNING: The Lightning have held the turnover advantage in 12 of their 13 games this season. They have also out-shot their opponent in 11 of 13 games. On Sunday the Lightning put up a season high 118 shots in the 131-130 victory.
POINTS A PLENTY: The Lightning have had 5 different players score at least 25 points in a game and 8 different players record at least 18 points in a game, both are CBA highs. The Lightning is averaging 129.9 points a game. That would not only shatter the franchise record, but it is just 3.7 points off the all time CBA record set by the Rochester Zenith in 1980-81.
STAT TRACKING: Each of the top 4 CBA Scorers were in Rockford this weekend. David Harrison continues to lead the league with a 28.3 average while Albert White has moved up to 4th in the scoring standings (21.8). Larry Ayuso (24.0) and Jerald Honeycutt (22.5) of Grand Rapids hold down the 2nd and 3rd position respectively. The two teams combine for three of the top 4 rebounders and three of the top 4 steals leaders.
Continental Basketball Association 2 Stories from December 17, 2002
- Coach Daleo Moonlights for Meridian School District - Rockford Lightning
- Lightning Complete Weekend Sweep of Grand Rapids - Rockford Lightning
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