Troy Fights Off Fullerton in Double OT

Nobody had to tell Troy center Marc Ahlberg how poorly he had played in the first half against Fullerton Friday night. But Warrior Coach T.J. Hardeman did anyway.

Hardeman delivered a verbal thrashing to Ahlberg at halftime and the 6-foot-5 post player took it to heart, then carried his team to a 54-51 double-overtime Freeway League victory in front of a frenzied, standing-room-only crowd at Fullerton High.

In the first half, Ahlberg fumbled several passes out of bounds, threw several others away and had only two points as unranked Fullerton (14-3, 2-1 in league play) took a 24-20 lead over No. 3 Troy (19-1, 3-0).

The third quarter wasn’t much better as Ahlberg picked up a technical foul and was whistled for his fourth personal with just under a minute left in the period.

But in the fourth quarter and two overtime periods, he had 10 points, five rebounds and four blocked shots.

Two of those blocks came on last-second shot attempts by Fullerton, in the fourth quarter and on a three-point attempt by Fullerton’s David Fells as the final buzzer sounded.

“Coach basically said I was the worst player on the court and I was costing us the game,” Ahlberg said of the halftime motivational speech. “He said nobody should pass it to me because we couldn’t depend on me for anything.”

“I said ‘you can depend on me,’ but I wanted to do more than just say it, I wanted to go out and prove it.”

He did just that, despite playing the fourth quarter and two overtimes with four fouls.

His three-point play early in the fourth gave Troy its first lead of the second half at 36-34. He had a layup and two free throws to tie the game at 47-47 in the first overtime, and had another inside basket to give the Warriors a 52-49 lead with 2:42 left in the second overtime. He finished with 12 points

“He was brutal in the first half,” Hardeman said. “But this just shows why there are two halves. You can play a bad one and then make up for it.”

In another Freeway League game:

La Habra 58, Buena Park 46--Tristen Gadberry scored 23 points and Jason Smallwood chipped in with 15 as La Habra (10-9, 2-1) took control of a tight game by outscoring Buena Park (10-9, 0-3), 24-11, in the third quarter.

Matt Rodriguez led the Coyotes with 17 points and 10 rebounds.