Lee Kauftheil
Mesa Legend

The Thunderbirds men’s basketball team finished conference play with the homecoming game Feb. 27 against Scottsdale Community College. The gym walls were decorated for the event with pictures of the Mesa players from both the men’s and women’s teams and had each player’s photo labeled with the name of a Greek god or goddess.
MCC was ranked second in their division and the victory over the Artichokes would serve as their 20th win.
Point guard Micky Burtnyk said the team’s biggest improvement from the beginning of the season to the end was teamwork and the players really came together. At the start of the season, most of the players were new to one another and having not played together before was not an easy step to climb.
Forward Fred Marshall said, “At the beginning, we did not know what kind of team we were going to be, all of our hard work paid off.”
“ At the beginning, our chemistry was horrible and we had to come together as a team and we learned to communicate,” Center Mark Fresby added.
The chemistry was in full effect in the 78-75 win over SCC.
The high scorers of the night were Fresby and Marshall with 21 points each. Forward Ryan Rourke followed with 18.
Head Coach Alton Lister said that the team knew they were going to have to work hard for a win. “Scottsdale is a better team than their record shows,” he said.
The game started with MCC winning the tip-off only to turn it over to SCC who claimed the first points of the game. The Artichokes began putting pressure on the ball right away. With 17:53 remaining on the clock in the first half, a full time out was called by Mesa and the team came back strong with Alex Davis making a three-point shot, the first of the game. With halftime approaching, MCC had yet to take the lead. Fresby nailed a two-pointer, giving MCC the lead with 3:10 left in the first half. As halftime drew nearer, the tension was high and SCC player Toussaint Henderson fouled Dustin Kereluk and he fell to the hard wood floor. Kereluk sustained a large gash from his forehead to his cheek and possibly suffered a concussion. He was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.
The score at the half was 35-31 Mesa.
At halftime, Henderson got into an argument with his coach and threw several chairs onto the court, changed out of his uniform, stormed off the court. He did not resume play the rest of the game.
MCC started off with the ball because of a technical foul that was called on Henderson at the beginning of the half. Rourke dunked the ball with only four seconds having gone by, and the T-birds kept their game strong and aggressive.
When SCC called their last timeout with 28 seconds on the clock, the score was 76-72 Mesa. The Artichokes took the court and scored a three-point shot that brought them within one point. With two seconds left on the clock, Scottsdale’s Brian Scurr fouled Marshall who sank both of his free-throw shots. The final seconds of the game ticked away and Mesa finished up by three.
“ We knew as long as we stayed solid defensively and stuck to our defensive principles we would be alright,” said Lister.