Holliday ends Howe's season, 61-56

A year ago, the Bulldogs finished 9-19, snuck into the playoffs and quickly exited to the hands of Sunnyvale, 72-31 Within a month, 24-year veteran Howe head coach Tim Rose had announced his retirement It wasn't long before veteran coach Tim Short was hired to take over for Rose. In his first year, Short improved the win total from nine to 21 and became the fourth head coach for Howe to coach in a playoff game since 1970. Tom Skipworth coached the boys to a playoff run 1970, but the program went 16 years before John Burkhart was able to get the 'Dogs back in post-season play in 1986, Rose entered the playoffs on several occasions over his lengthy stay, and now Short, in his first year has revamped the Bulldogs basketball program by entering the playoffs in his first season That's something that hasn't been done since Burkhart's 1985-86 team

The toughest losses are the ones in which seem in-hand for the majority of the game and that certainly happened Wednesday night in Decatur Due to the recent ice storm, the game was moved from it's original date of Tuesday night and postponed until Wednesday evening

Howe's first period went just as planned and probably even a little bit better The Bulldogs at one point took a 12 point lead when Michael Kehrer stole a pass and went the other way for the easy layup to put Howe up 19-7. Moments later, Howe took a 19-9 lead into the second period.

In the second, Holliday's Reed Cummings came alive and scored 10 of his 14 first half points Cummings used his large body to gain position throughout the evening and when Holliday's guards realized they could lob it down to him, it became a heavy mismatch for Howe

The Bulldogs saw their 10 point first period lead stripped down to one and went to the locker room clinging to a one point lead, 29-28

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