Buhach Colony uses strong Coffey performance to defeat Livingston

After the Buhach Colony High boys basketball team opened the season with a blowout loss to Gregori, Thunder coach Shane Gentry challenged Skyler Coffey to step up his game.

The senior has responded.

Coffey turned in his fifth consecutive double-figure scoring performance, finishing with 25 points and pulling down 11 rebounds as Buhach Colony held off Livingston 74-71 on the opening night of the Atwater-Buhach Colony Tournament on Thursday night at the Thunder Dome.

“After that first loss, coach Gentry asked me to be more of a leader out there and I’ve taken it to heart these last five games,” Coffey said. “I’ve stepped up to the challenge.”

Coffey’s approach is simple. If he’s got the ball and sees a lane to the basket, he’s going to take it. Coffey scored the bulk of his points in the paint or at the free-throw line against the Wolves.

“When he finds a weakness in the defense he’s going to attack it,” said Gentry, whose team has won five in a row to improve to 5-1 this season. “He’s great at using his body. He’s been playing great.”

The Thunder needed Coffey’s outburst to overcome the 34 points from Livingston guard Kevin Alvarez, who kept the Wolves in the game with his long-range shooting and his ability to get to the free-throw line.

Alvarez took advantage of a tightly-officiated game by getting to the charity stripe 23 times and making 16 of them. He also made four 3-pointers, including some from 25 feet.

“He was really tough,” Coffey said. “He did a good job of coming off screens. They ran their flex offense well. At times we did OK, but he did a good job of getting open.”

The Thunder’s depth helped them overcome some severe foul trouble as Buhach Colony was whistled for 27 fouls. The Thunder’s leading scorer on the season Jeremy Sicarios was in foul trouble early and eventually fouled out. Livingston (3-5) also had to go deep into its bench after it racked up 23 fouls, which resulted in Maddux Ballenger and Gurpreet Chohan fouling out.

“We wanted to press because we had some success with it, but we had several players in foul trouble and we were worried they wouldn’t last long so we had to go to more of a half-court game,” Gentry said.

The Thunder lead was like a Yo-Yo. Buhach Colony would stretch it to about nine points and then the Wolves would answer with a couple 3-pointers to cut the deficit back down.

Buhach Colony used a mini 10-4 run to open up a 29-21 lead and Livingston quickly cut the lead to 29-27 a few minutes later.

The Thunder scored the first seven points of the second half to extend the lead to 40-31 and Alvarez hit back-to-back 3-pointers to cut the lead to 40-37.

Coffey scored on three consecutive trips down the court for BC in the fourth quarter to give the thunder a 67-58 lead, but Livingston answered with an 11-2 run to tie the game at 69-all after a 3-pointer by Chohan with 2:07 left.

Irik Dobbins hit the big shot for the Thunder late, knocking down a 3-pointer from the top of the key to give BC a 72-69 lead with 2:23 remaining.

Alvarez hit a pair of free throws to pull the Wolves within 72-71 with 28.7 second left, but Buhach Colony held off Livingston the rest of the way, forcing Alvarez to take a tough shot in the paint with about 10 seconds left and then drawing a charge on Alvarez with 3 seconds left.

Thunder players Andrew Morris (10 points) and Dobbins (10 points) both split a pair of free throws in the final 8.6 seconds for the final margin of victory.

The Thunder will host Escalon on Friday night at 7 and Livingston travels to Atwater at 7 for the second day of the ABC Tournament.

This story was originally published December 8, 2016 at 9:52 PM with the headline "Buhach Colony uses strong Coffey performance to defeat Livingston."