MANNHEIM, Germany — Center Robert Young scored seven of his team’s final 12 points Sunday as the Hanau Hornets rallied from a six-point deficit in the final 2 minutes, 33 seconds to claim the 2005 Army-Europe youth services junior basketball championship with a 35-31 victory over the Vogelweh Warriors.
“They were a tough team,” Young said after his team completed its unbeaten run through the double-elimination event for players aged 13-15 by erasing a deficit that reached as many as 12 points.
Young scored on a drive into the lane with 1:15 to play to tie the game at 31 and get Hanau even for the first time since early in the first quarter. His free throw 13 seconds later, the last of his 15 points, put Hanau up for good.
The free throw came after Vogelweh’s Julian Portillo, who played every minute of every previous game in the tournament, fouled out with 1:02 to play after scoring 20 points, stealing the ball 10 times and collecting 11 rebounds.
“That was out goal, getting him out of the game,” said Young, a 15-year-old Hanau High School sophomore. “He’s their main man.”
While Portillo’s foul trouble didn’t cost him any playing time except for the last 62 seconds of the game, James Wright’s foul trouble took him out of the game. Wright was forced to sit for nearly 10 minutes of the 24-minute game after picking up his third foul with 3:59 to play before halftime. Wright, who scored five points, returned in the final minutes but fouled out with 10 seconds left in the game.
While Wright was sitting, Hanau went to work mounting a 7-1 third-quarter run behind a three-pointer by Antonio Ford and two baskets by Zayne Riggins, who scored 11 points.
The Hornets then turned the game over to Young for the 14-7 fourth-quarter spurt.
“We were never worried,” said Ford, an eighth-grader at Hanau Middle School, about his team’s playing from behind for more than 19 minutes on Sunday. “We knew we just had to keep our heads in the game.”
Hanau 35, Vogelweh 31
(Sunday at Mannheim)
Hanau 6 8 7 14 35
Vogelweh 8 15 1 7 31
Scoring: Hanau, Robert Young 15, Zayne Riggins 11, Antonio Ford 4, Juan Agosto 2, Zach Riggins 2, Latanya Wilson 1; Vogelweh, Julian Portillo 20, James Wright 5, Nico Gazzale 4, Sean Duggan 2.
Game MVPs: Zayne Riggins, Hanau; Julian Portillo, Vogelweh.
