11-30-16
BY JACK BULLOCK
CAMPBELL HILL - For the Steeleville Warriors and head coach Bryce Bainter, the Trico Tournament can prove to be a long week.

On Wednesday night the Warriors got a breather of sorts as they took care of Shawnee in quick fashion.

Steeleville led from the outset, with only a couple of ties early, and romped to a 72-17 victory with a continuous clock being used in the fourth quarter.

The Warriors never see teams play zone defense but they saw one tonight by the Redskins.

It proved to be quite beneficial for Steeleville as they moved the ball well and nailed a lot of long range shots.

Steeleville made 10 3-pointers, exactly half of the ones that they attempted (10-of-20) as they worked well against the 2-3 matchup.

Before Shawnee knew what hit them, they were down 20-points in the second quarter.

“We have some sophomores and juniors who I wanted to get some varsity time in and in the first two games we didn't have time. But tonight I thought I could do that,” said Coach Bainter. “And we got to see a zone defense and we don't see too many of them.”

Coach Russ Marsh has a young group of inexperience kids and it showed on this night as they fell behind 35-8 at the half.

On the other end of the floor for Shawnee, they were generous with the basketball, committing 31-turnovers.

To their credit, the Redskins didn't give up but were clearly outmatched as they fell to 0-3 on the season.

Steeleville had 11 different players score in the win.

Senior guard Dusty Sutton led the barrage of points with 16 with four 3-pointers.

Coach Bainter got eight-points each from junior Nic Ebers and senior Andrew Grafton.

Five other players; sophomore Bradley Mevert, sophomore Gavin Conway, senior RJ Smith, junior Eli Wittenborn and junior Noah Valleroy, all scored six-points each.

After the two teams exchanged some points early, the Warriors broke free from a 7-7 tie with a 13-2 run to finish the first quarter.

Sutton canned two of his 3-point bombs in the quarter with his second one making it 10-7 with 4:37 left.

Mevert scored twice late in the quarter and a rebound bucket by Ebers was also part of the sprint.

Mevert's second score close the frame at 20-7.

A 13-1 run to begin the second stanza by the Warriors removed much of the doubt in the outcome.

A third trifecta from Sutton and a pair of inside buckets by the 6-footy-6 Valleroy got the run brewing.

Two 3-point bombs Grafton and a lay in from Ebers closed the half at 35-8 Warriors.

At this point Shawnee had twice as many turnovers (18) as they did points.

Sophomore Owen Gross scored just five-points in the game and his score in the lane opened up another run.

Senior Ryan Frederking also got involved with a spinning score in the lane and also a pair of free throws.

Back-to-back 3-pointers by Ebers and Sutton and another score from Wittenborn close the third at 51-15 Steeleville.

Reserves closed out the fourth quarter for the most part with a mercy rule in effect.

“A lot of times when a team gets that far ahead they will kind of let off the gas and let down a little bit but for the most part our kids played hard,” added Coach Bainter. “We played well defensively and we finally hit some shots, we struggled in the first two games. That got us going defensively and our effort was there the whole night.”

Besides hitting half of their 3-pointers, the Warriors were a dominant 28-of-50 overall (56 percent) while outrebounding the Redskins 26-13.

They grabbed 10-offensive boards in the offensive effort which is outstanding for a team that missed just 22-shot attempts.

For Coach Marsh's club, the numbers weren't good as they hit just 6-of-26 from the floor (23 percent) when they weren't turning it over.

Junior forward Trenton Matlock scored seven-points for Shawnee while Dawson Johnson and Wyatt Harris scored four-points apiece.

“We go up against teams this week that their enrollment is so much bigger than ours it is hard for us to compete,” said Coach Marsh. “But the kids have heart, they have desire. We have a lot of kids who have never played varsity basketball, junior varsity is all that they have done. So we are rebuilding. I like what I have for the future. It is going to get better.”

Both teams head back to work in two days.

Steeleville will play their annual Friday battle with host Trico at 7 pm while Shawnee will play Red Bud at 5:30 pm.

TRICO 59, SPARTA 26
The Pioneers rolled to an easy win over the Bulldogs behind 23-points from senior Justin Bauersachs and 14 -points from junior Seth Myers.

Trico improved to 3-0 on the season with the win as they sprinted out to a 29-15 halftime edge and closed the book with a 19-6 third quarter to force continuous clock in the fourth quarter.

Coach Andrew Wilson also got eight-points from junior Ryan Vogt and six-points from Jesse Smith.

Sparta dropped to 0-3 in the tournament and the season for Coach Jon Norton.

Sophomore Isaac Floyd was the top scorer with nine-points for the Bulldogs.

CHESTER 55, RED BUD 44
The Yellow Jackets broke open a tight game with a 24-13 third quarter and cruised to the win to stay unbeaten at 3-0 in the event.

Coach Brad Norman's club had balanced scoring with three players in double-figures.

Senior Demontae Martin led the way with 13-points, including three 3-point bombs during the Yellow Jackets third quarter romp.

Seniors Savion Smith and Jacob Golding added 10-points each.

Martin canned a trey at the end of the third, banking home a shot from the top of the arc for a 47-38 lead.

Red Bud fell to 1-2 on the year, despite 14-points from senior Frederick Grohmann and 12-points from Griffin Ziebold.