SSC jumps out to early lead in 70-35 victory

OKABENA — It was the type of start head coach Tim Owen wanted.

Jumping out to a 19-0 lead Monday night, the Southwest Star Concept boys’ basketball team cruised to a 70-35 victory against visiting Martin Luther.

“We had a great start,” Owen said. “We talked at the beginning of the game that we wanted to take them out of the game right away. Obviously when you get up 19-0 and it was almost 10 minutes before they score, that frustrates an opponent.”

Ben Scheevel scored a game-high 23 points and had eight rebounds to lead the Quasars, who improve to 4-0 this season.

William Cranston had 14 points and had nine rebounds.

However, 10 different players scored in the game for SSC.

Scheevel started the run for the Quasars with a pair of free throws, and Kirk McBreen (nine points) hit a 3-pointer to give SSC a 5-0 lead.

After a layup by Cranston and another by Scheevel, Martin Luther used its first timeout with 15:03 remaining in the first half.

Out of the timeout, Scheevel hit a pair of foul shots and Cranston was true on a jumper, increasing the lead to 13-0.

“I’m really happy with the way we came out and executed at the beginning of the game and did what we wanted to do,” Owen said.

Scheevel and Cranston each hit a shot to increase the lead to 17-0, and Cranston followed with another shot to give SSC a 19-0 lead with just less than nine minutes remaining in the first half.

Matt Knutson (12 points) hit a trey with 8:40 remaining in the first half for the ML’s first points of the game.

“They didn’t have many open looks in the first 10 minutes,” Owen said. “We did what we had to do. We executed offensively, we ran the floor very well and that’s one of our strengths.”

More than a minute passed before ML had another good look at a basket.

Knutson nailed another trey at the seven-minute mark to cut the deficit to 23-6.

“That’s been our thing so far through four games, we haven’t given up a lot of open looks,” Owen said. “Lincoln HI got some open looks by doing some different things on us, but in our other three games our defense has contested just about every shot. We’re not giving up easy shots in the paint, we’re definitely contesting inside, which is forcing teams to shoot from the outside. I don’t know many teams that will shoot better from the 3-point line than a layup.”

Knutson hit another 3-pointer in the first half, but Scheevel had 17 first-half points as SSC had a 41-15 lead at the break.

Applying a full-court press to start the second half, the Knights were able to make a small run.

Cody Geistfeld connected on a turnaround jump shot on ML’s first possession, and Knutson hit another trey on the Knight’s following possession, cutting the lead to 41-20.

Corey Wiederhoeft followed with a 3-pointer, capping ML’s 8-0 run to start the half.

“I’m a little disappointed with the way that we started the second half,” Owen said. “We just didn’t have the intensity. I don’t want to harp on it and I don’t want to sound like a scrooge to my players, but I was a little disappointed in our second-half start. We finished very well, but we did not have a very intense start.”

While Owen and the Quasars weren’t pleased with the start of the second half, they were pleased with the finish.

After the 8-0 ML run, McBreen hit a pair of 3s during a 9-0 SSC run to increase the lead to 50-23.

Scheevel later connected on five consecutive points to push the lead to 30 points, 57-27.

SSC continued to build the lead in the final minutes before taking the 70-35 decision.

The Quasars will have a break over the holidays before starting a tough part of their schedule, traveling to Hills-Beaver Creek Jan. 6 and hosting Westbrook-Walnut Grove three days later.

“We fall into the frying pan so to speak,” Owen said. “We’re going to need to be ready. We’ll take the rest of this week off and let the kids have some Christmas time, but then we’ll get back at it next week.”

ML 15 20 — 35

SSC 41 29 — 70

ML (3FG-2FG-FT-TP) Knutson 4-0-0-12, Wiederhoeft 1-2-1-8, Gronewold 0-2-0-4, Wolle 0-1-2-4, Geistfeld 0-1-0-2, Riewe 0-1-0-2, Maloney 1-0-0-3. Totals 6-7-3-35.

SSC (3FG-2FG-FT-TP) Scheevel 0-8-7-23, McBreen 3-0-0-9, Cranston 0-7-0-14, Crocker 0-4-0-8, Pelzel 0-1-0-2, Rossow 0-0-1-1, Collin 0-1-4-6, Stenzel 0-1-2-4, Hall 0-0-1-1, Pomerenke 0-0-2-2. Totals 3-22-17-70.

Tags: sports, southweststarconcept, ssc, boysbasketball