By T. Scott Boatright
Basketball is a game of surges, and it was a pair of first-half surges by Castor High School that led the Tigers defeating Cedar Creek 58-47 Tuesday night inside The Brickhouse.
A 5-0 run by Castor to open the game gave the Tigers momentum. Castor led by as many as six points in the first quarter before the Cougars battled back to pull within four points at 15-11 heading into the second stanza.
“Early on we stepped out of the scouting report a little bit and gave (Castor’s) 12 (Cole Gilcrease) and 24 (Kyler Austin) as good of offensive rebounds we’ve seen all year,” said Cougars coach Todd Martinez. “Those were easy rebounds that led to easy buckets.
“The two possessions to start the game, 11 (Castor’s Hayden Thompson) runs off a baseline screen and then (on the Tigers’ next possession) 12 gets an offensive rebound and we’re down 5-0. That was a punch in the mouth. But we locked in the next seven minutes and played with them really well until that last part of the second quarter.”
That second-quarter surge for the Tigers started with a Matt McCarthy 3-pointer with 4:51 remaining in the first half giving Castor a 20-16 advantage and starting a 14-1 run that left Cedar Creek down 30-17 at halftime.
“At halftime (Gilcrease) and (Austin) had combined for 15 of their 30 points,” Martinez said. “We knew about 11 (Thompson). You have to guard 11 differently than you guard everybody else. Normally in high school basketball, you run back to the lane and guard the lane. You guard the game against 11 and you’re giving up three points. You let him loose and you’re giving up three. And he got loose and hit three (3-pointers to finish with nine points), but I think we did a pretty good job of defending (against) him.”
Defensive play was a big part of that Castor run to close out the second quarter.
“We didn’t do a great job of handling the halfcourt trap toward the last segment of the second quarter which was, to me, the difference in the game,” Martinez said. “Those last four minutes of the second quarter, where we didn’t do a good job of handling their trap defense and keeping them off the offensive glass caused the scoring (separation). That and the fact that we didn’t shoot well from the (free throw) line in the second half.’
A 3-point shot by a wide open Luke Alexander off an assist from Temple cut the Castor lead to six points at 31-25 at the 5:08 mark of the third quarter, but that’s as close as the Cougars would get the rest of the way with the Tigers building as much as a 17–point lead at 50-33 with 5:32 remaining in the game.
Alexander led the Cougars with 14 points while Temple added 11.
Gilcrease led Castor with 17 points while Austin finished with nine for the Tigers.
“I thought we fought like crazy and gave ourselves a chance,” Martinez said. “They have bigs and can run. The thing we wanted to stop them in was transitioning because we saw that they scored multiple games in the 60s and 70s and even the 80s, so keeping them in the 50s was something we wanted to do. I thought we did a good job of that. But it just wasn’t quite enough.”
Now the Cougars (12-21) turn their attention to Thursday’s season finale at home against Downsville.
“We told them we’re going to learn a lot about our culture,” Martinez said of Thursday’s upcoming season finale. “Where we are position-wise (out of a chance at the playoffs), it becomes are we willing to send Cam (Temple, Cedar Creek’s lone senior) out on a good night because he deserves it. That kid has been amazing. And finishing the season with a win and going into the spring and summer with some momentum would be a good thing for this team.
“When I was hired I said that we were going to be process oriented not outcome oriented. Granted, everybody wants to win and all that stuff, but if you focus on the outcome and not the process, you’re never going to meet your goals. So, we’re going to learn a lot about our culture on Thursday. Are we just going to show up and go through the motions, or are we going to show up and try to do things right?”
