Lancers play for 1A substate title

Chalk talk of the week: don’t take any team lightly or overlook any team.
Crest High’s Lancers brought that attitude into Thursday’s Kansas Class 1A, Division II Substate Tournament semifinals. They rolled up a 77-32 win over Altoona-Midway High’s Jets, a team that was 1-20 coming into the contest.
The Lancers will have that same focus for tonight’s substate championship game. They play Chetopa High’s Hornets, who dominated the Jackrabbits of Kansas School for the Deaf (KSD) 65-25 on Thursday.
“We beat Chetopa 58-27 when we played them in the regular season. But they are athletic and a hot and cold team. If they get hot they can beat teams,” said Travis Hermreck, Crest head coach.
“We don’t take them for granted. We want to come out and establish our game (tonight) and not give them easy baskets early.”
Tonight’s championship game is at 7:30 at Allen County Community College.
The Lancers attempt to reach the state tournament for the first time since 2009. The winner advances to the 2012 Kansas Class 1A, Division II State Basketball Tournament, which starts Wednesday in Hays.
In Thursday’s semifinal, the Lancers pounded the basketball inside early and often against the Jets. Jesse Boone came off the bench to pour in 18 points and eight of those came in the first quarter.
Jayden Bowen finished with 12 points for the Lancers as he had several putback buckets. Kyle Hammond ended up with 11 points and Chris Brallier added 10 points.
“I’m happy with the way our mind set was coming into this game. One game at a time,” Hermreck said.
“I’m really proud of the way our big guys played. They’ve done a lot of ‘dirty’ work all season that didn’t show up in the stats. But tonight, their hard work does show up.”
Crest opened with a 6-0 run and led 22-8 after one quarter of play. It was 37-14 when the Lancers left the Jets in their wake, rattling off 10 unanswered.
The Lancers controlled a 47-16 halftime lead. Crest outscored Altoona-Midway 18-10 in the third quarter. The fourth quarter was played under a running clock and with the reserves for both teams.
Crest did not shoot a free throw in the game. Altoona-Midway was 7 of 14.
The Jets were led by Lane Huffman with eight points and Tanner Engelman with six points.
In the first semifinal game Thursday, Chetopa led KSD 21-4 after one and 43-8 at halftime.
Crest (22-25-18-12-77) (FG/3-pt): C. Bowen 4-0-2-8, Boone 9-0-0-18, Green 0/1-0-1-3, Stephens 0/1-0-0-3, Morton 1/2-0-2-8, Hammond 4/1-0-4-11, Brallier 2/2-0-2-10, J. Bowen 6-0-3-12, Davis 1-0-1-2, Ellis 1-0-1-2. TOTALS: 28/7-0-16-77.
Altoona-Midway (8-8-10-6-32) (FG/3-pt): Walker 0/1-2-0-5, Browne 2-1-1-5, C. DeNoon 0/1-1-2-4, Huffman 0/2-2-1-8, Engelman 1/1-1-2-6, A. DeNoon 2-0-2-4. TOTALS: 5/5-7-8-32.