“We are not a team that has just one (player) who scores a lot. We usually have four, five guys between 12 and 6 (points). I like that because it makes it harder to defend us because you can’t say, ‘Hey, I need to stop Andrew (Centofanti).’ Every night it has been somebody else,” Bulldogs coach Ken Grisdale said.

He added, ” We rely on a lot of effort and we pride ourselves on the defensive end. We didn’t rebound as well tonight. We’re not very tall or overly athletic, but we play hard and try to do the dirty work and hope we are able to knock a few shots in and tonight we did.”

The Bulldogs improve to 16-3 on the season as they advance to face the third-seeded Chaney Cowboys on Saturday at 4 p.m. in a district final. The Leopards close their season with a 14-10 record.

“We came into this game prepping that they were going to be a good team. We don’t want our season to end so this was a big one for us. To move on to play in the district championship Saturday is very exciting for us,” junior guard Christian Colosimo said.

Correspondent photo / Lowell Spencer Poland’s Christian Colosimo (3) gets past a Louisville defender on Thursday.

After leading by as much as 17 points late in the third quarter, the Bulldogs had to hold off a ferocious rally by the Leopards in the fourth period to escape with the victory. Following a technical foul on the Leopards at the 4:01 mark of the third quarter, the Bulldogs converted their free throws and scored twice more to hold a 43-26 lead at the end of the period.

But with the start of the fourth frame, Louisville went on a 12-2 run closed the Bulldogs’ advantage to 45-38 with 5:06 left in the game. However, Poland responded with a bucket by Colosimo, and two clutch shots from Brody Todd, and the Dogs pushed their lead back out to 10, at 51-41 with 1:27 remaining. Centofanti added two free throws with just 13 seconds left to seal the game.

“We had to gather ourselves and settle down and make the smart plays,” Colosimo said about the Leopard’s late push. “We had to make smart decisions and not turn the ball over, not letting them have easy buckets. We made good shots and some good plays.”

Grisdale was happy his team withstood the Louisville rally.

“I thought in the fourth quarter we didn’t think. We started just scrambling and they tried to make us play faster than we wanted to. When we got to where we were supposed to we were fine, but when we didn’t, we turned the ball over and we gave them some life. They hit some big shots. That’s a quality program and they weren’t going to quit. But we found a way to push it back out to ten and get the win,” Grisdale said.

The Bulldogs never trailed in the game as they led 10-5 at the end of the first quarter, and they pushed their lead out to 14 points at 23-9 at the 3:37 mark of the second period following a 3-pointer from Dom DeToro. The Bulldogs held that same advantage margin at 32-18 going into the locker rooms at halftime.