Three-point shot that defies the rules

Senior captain Erik Meharg gets it all the time. It?s a friendly razing from teammates and coaches in practice, or it could come from an opponent in a visiting gym. His three-point shooting form, to use a term of Huron co-captain Pat Quaine, is ?weird. I don?t know how he does it.? Most basketball players from the pros on down, get the ball, hoist it high over their heads and let it roll off their fingertips. The only differences are how high players jump or the arc of the ball. Some have high arcing shots, while some fire in line drives.

Meharg has a high-arc, but everything else before it ends up in the air defies the rules. His shot starts about the beltline, almost off his right hip. He tries to grip the ball at the seams, and, flings, chucks, launches, pushes, whatever word you want to use to describe it, toward the basket. What looks so wrong to the eyes, usually ends being so right, along with more Huron points on the scoreboard. ?It goes in 90 percent of the time,? said Rogers City boys? head coach Jesse Streich. Even though the shot starts so low, he?s only been blocked maybe once in his high school career. It just doesn?t make sense.

?It?s goofy,? said teammate Tim Bober, when asked about the shot Tuesday night at practice, with an agreeing laugh from Chris Waibel standing close by. ?He has an awkward release,? Bober added. ?I get that all the time,? said Meharg. Chris Vogelheim tells his senior teammate, ? ?you have the weirdest shot I?ve ever seen.? ? When did he start shooting the ball that way? ?When I was a little kid I always loved three pointers, and I wasn?t strong enough to get the proper form, a

nd I guess it always stuck with me,? said Meharg. A former coach tried to tweak it, but that project was quickly scrapped. ?I?m always giving him stuff about it, but he gets it off. The (Huron) players call him (Kevin) Pittsnogle,? a former West Virginia three-point shooting specialist. ?He?s (Meharg) been hitting them forever. If it works for him, I don?t want to mess with it.? Meharg?s three-point shooting prowess is only one facet of his game, as he can take over offensively from the floor as well. ?His defense is better than his offense,? said Streich. ?He has steals and rebounds, the kid?s just amazing.?

Teams know they have to contend with No. 23, so it?s going to take a team effort for the Hurons to make it back-to-back district titles, and Rogers City has shown they have a balanced attack. Meharg said winning the district title is only one of the goals in the post season, as the Hurons would like to go a step further in the regional tournament and maybe make a quarterfinal game. They are playing some of their best basketball right now. ?We expect to win districts. It?s in this gym,? said Streich in the friendly confines of the RCHS gym. ?We?re hoping to get as many people in here to pack it in and give us the home-court advantage. ?This year, we?ve been preaching to not look too far ahead, but we expect a little more this year. It?s our goal to go farther.?

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