The Crest Lancers authored a pair of blowouts Friday night, dispatching the visiting Altoona-Midway Jets by 69-46 on the boys side, while the Lancer girls sent the Jets back to Wilson County on the wrong side of a 51-23 tally.
BOYS
While Crest waited until the second half to blow this game wide open, they lit the essential fuse in the final seconds of the first half when senior Jacob Holloran dribbled the length of the court and sank a 3-pointer at the buzzer, which sent the hometown Lancers into the half up 28-19, and left the visiting Jets limping into their locker room with their contrails between their legs.
And while Holloran provided the first-half spark for the teams second-half explosion, it was senior Hayden Hermreck who lent the game its chief kaboom. The high-flying senior, who has more hops than your favorite IPA although, in truth, he did stick his only dunk attempt to the front of the rim ended the game with 22 and was the contests leading scorer. Crests Zach Beckmon proved a solid, hard-to-guard force the entire night, contributing 18 points to the Lancer win. Holloran added 14. Junior Caleb Nolan had 6; sophomore Tyson Hermreck added 5; and the Praskos, Ethan and Ben, each dropped a bucket.
Lancer Head Coach Travis Hermreck took a measured approach to his teams lopsided victory. Weve got to focus on the positives tonight because weve been struggling recently, Hermreck conceded. But in doing that we have to make sure we understand that there are a lot of things we didnt do so well. I thought that in the first quarter we didnt have great [physical] effort and I thought that in the second half, at times, we didnt have great mental effort. But, all that aside, we did share the ball pretty well, we got out and ran the floor, and we got some good open looks.
You know, laughed Hermreck, its kind of fun when you win.
Crest heads into a notoriously tough tournament in Liberal, Mo., next week. The competition will be brutal across the board. The Lancers’ first game is against Thomas Jefferson (the private school in Joplin, not the founding father) on Monday. And Thomas Jefferson is always good, said Hermreck, and they will be really good again. Well have three games [in Liberal] and well have to play really well to get a win. Like I said, weve just got to take the positives, learn from the negatives, and lets just try to get better.
And, you know what, maybe we go over there and shock somebody. Who knows?
?GIRLS
Its the conscientious coach who is determined never to let a clobbering go to waste. Megan Masons Lancers opened up an early lead versus Altoona-Midway on Friday, and they continued to pile up the points until the final buzzer sounded. Tonight was more of a learning game, explained Mason. We had new plays that we didnt know very well, and this was a great time to learn. And I was able to get my freshmen in a lot more. I love these kinds of games because these younger players can get in more and become more familiar with being out there.
And it shouldnt offend the ears of the team from Altoona-Midway to learn that their defense was the canvas upon which the Lancers sketched some of their newest plays. The Jets team, led by Michala Kinzle (11 points) is overflowing with grit and hustle and heart, and some year it will be the Jets who treat another teams defense like nothing more than an array of stationary cones in a dribbling drill.
Its just that that wasnt the case on Friday.
On Friday, it was all Lancers.
