11-25-06
BY JACK BULLOCK
EFFINGHAM - Using patience on offense and playing hard-nosed defense has worked since James Naismith hung up his first peach basket.

It is as true now as it was then and the Effingham Hearts used this philosophy well in its performance in the championship game against Vandalia on Saturday at the St. Anthony Thanksgiving Tournament.

Taking advantage of a physical Class AA-type game and hitting some huge shots in the second half, the Hearts showed little compassion in manhandling the Vandals, 48-35, in winning the St. Anthony event in its first season of participation.

Out rebounding Vandalia 23-17, Coach Ron Reed’s Effingham club improved to 4-0 on the season. In fact nearly every stat on the sheet favored the Apollo Conference Hearts.

After having beat St. Anthony on Friday night in an emotional cross-town rivalry game, the Hearts came out aggressive on both ends of the floor to pick up the tournament title.

Six-foot-six senior all-state candidate Eric Hobbie was held to 13 points and just five rebounds, well short of his normal numbers as the his Vandals fell to 3-1 on the season with the second place finish.

“We are going to try and guard you and we defended pretty well tonight,” said Reed. “I thought Jim Georges did a great job on Hobbie tonight and our guards defended them out on the perimeter. We kept a lot of ball pressure on them.”

Coach Kevin Jackson, in his first season as the head coach at VHS, will probably like to burn the tape of this game.

“Effingham guards you well and that is a Ron Reed team, they will guard you and they will execute,” said Vandalia head coach Kevin Jackson. “We tweaked our offense a bit for this game but we never got close to doing what we planned. Right now we are not discipline enough and I’m not ripping our kids but we have to learn a lesson from this.”

In a game in which every possession mattered, Effingham made the most of each opportunity.

With Hobbie on the bench with two fouls with just four minutes gone in the game, Vandalia was forced to a zone defense.

Zach Scott, a 5-foot-10 senior guard who was named to the all-tournament team, canned a pair of 3-pointers from well past the line. The second one gave the Hearts a 7-5 advantage.

Taylor Wollerman hit two 3-pointers on the night and his first one found the bottom of the net get the lead back for Vandalia.

Blake Doehring, also an all-tournament team selection, scored on a baseline drive to finish the opening quarter at 10-7 Vandalia.

Scott broke out for two more trifectas in the second quarter but the Vandals made their best run of the night to get a halftime lead.

Hobbie scored seven points on a pair of free throws, a 3-pointer and later a score in the lane on a pass from Doehring to make it 19-13.

Effingham’s Steve Keller rebounded a Scott miss for a stick back to close the half at 19-15.

Even with a lead at the break, the Vandals looked uncomfortable.

A 3-pointer from Vandalia’s Derek Wright extended the Vandals advantage to its largest at 22-15 as the quarter started.

However Effingham took the lead in the game and controlled the third quarter in a turnaround of fortunes.

Scott and Lucas Hayes each connected from behind the arc while the inside damage was being done by 6-foot-2 senior Jim Georges.

He took the ball right inside where Hobbie was at and even though Effingham had a few shots blocked on this night, they continued to take the ball to the basket.

Three times in a 12-3 run Georges scored in the paint.

When his short jumper bounced around the rim and fell through with 3:23 left in the third quarter, Effingham had the lead for good at 27-25.

“We wanted to take the ball right at him (Hobbie) when he had foul trouble,” Reed added. “I told the kids go ahead and take it to the basket, if he blocks it, so what. We executed our game plan tonight and were more aggressive on offense.

In the quarter, Hayes (who was also named all-tournament) scored eight points.

His turnaround shot in the lane extended the Hearts to 34-25.

Vandalia’s Wollerman banked home a shot after faking Effingham’s Keller into the air just before the third quarter buzzer. The end result was a conventional 3-point play and a 34-28 margin heading to the fourth.

Effingham put the game away after Scott and Wollerman matched each other with 3-pointers for their teams.

Following a 3-pointer by Doehring with 4:34 remaining that forced an Effingham time out at 40-35; the Hearts pumped home enough shots to win the championship while not allowing the Vandals to steal another point.

A drive by Effingham’s Logan Ellington and a backdoor score by Georges; the Hearts spread the floor and clamped down on the defensive end.

Vandalia fired away 11 3-pointers in the fourth quarter but missed nine of them.

Two free throws by Scott with 46.9 seconds remaining ended the scoring.

Effingham hit 47 percent from the field (18-of-38) and that included an 8-of-16

“This is a pretty good shooting ballclub when they look for their shots and get their minds right about it,” added Reed talking about his squad. “We wanted to space the floor and keep things spread out and we made some good decisions on some back door cuts to the basket in the second half.”

Vandalia wasn’t very good offensively on this night after having won three games to open their season.

Unable to do much inside with the Effingham defense doing the job on Hobbie, Vandalia relied far too much on its outside shooting.

Coach Jackson’s club was just 6-of-23 from behind the line and 11-of-37 overall.

Hobbie topped the Vandals with 13 points, followed by Wollerman with 11 and Blake Doehring with 13.

Scott and Hayes each scored 14 for Effingham.

“We hit some shots early which covered up a lot of our mistakes but in the second half when we weren’t hitting those shots that made our execution look much worse,” finalized Jackson. “They out executed us tonight. We have some young kids out there that have played well at times but it is going to take a week or two to get some things fixed. We got beat by a good basketball team and now we have to go and get better.”

Effingham was nearly flawless all around, committing just four turnovers.

“This is a great win but we have a young team with a lot of room to improve,” Reed said. “I’m really excited about this team.”

	1	2	3	4	-	F
Vandalia	10	09	10	06	-	35
Effingham	07	08	19	14	-	48

Vandalia (35) - Hobbie 2 1 6-7 13, Blake Doehring 1 2 0-0 8, Wollerman 2 2 1-1 11, Brock Doehring 0 0 0-0 0, Craycroft 0 0 0-0 0, Johnson 0 0 0-0 0, Mackiewicz 0 0 0-0 0, Wright 0 1 0-1 3.
2FG-5, 3FG-6, FT-7-9, PF-12.
Effingham (48) - Scott 0 4 2-2 14, Hayes 1 4 0-0 14, Keller 4 0 0-0 8, Ellington 2 0 0-2 4, Jansen 0 0 1-2 1, Georges 3 0 1-2 7.
2FG-10, 3FG-8, FT-4-8, PF-13.
Fouled Out - None.
Technical Fouls - None.