By MIKE BLATT
Tribune sportswriter
February 12, 2008 11:58 pm
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BUNKER HILL — As their name might suggest, cold and snowy weather apparently suits the Northfield Norsemen just fine.
The Norse brought their own warmth to the gym here Tuesday night as they used torrid shooting and plenty of defensive heat to overpower the Maconaquah Braves 66-42 in boys basketball action.
Northfield connected on 24 of 32 shots from the field, a scorching 75 percent clip, and 15 of 18 from the charity stripe, an even better 83 percent. On defense, their full-court zone press and half-court matchup zone forced 20 Braves turnovers. The result was that the Norse led wire-to-wire and were never really threatened in the game.
Coming into the game having won five straight and seven of its last eight, Northfield (12-5) put on a passing clinic that led to layup after layup. Consider that 19 assists led to swingman Bodie Stith nailing 7 of 7 from the floor while center Nathan Van Duyne hit 8 of 10.
Maconaquah (8-9), playing without senior forward Kodi Deisch, who injured an ankle in Monday’s loss to Mississinewa, simply couldn’t stop the Norse offense. Northfield’s guard tandem of Jordan Culver and Michael Covurn were consistently able to penetrate and pass for open looks.
“We dug ourselves in a little bit of a hole early,” said Braves coach Luke Zartman, whose team fell behind 6-0 early and 17-9 after a quarter. “Once we did that, there wasn’t any way out. They spread us out, and no matter what we threw at them, they attacked well, they passed well, and they got a lot of easy layups.
“There were a lot of breakdowns [on defense] from us mentally and execution-wise that we can’t have if we want to be successful,” added Zartman.
Indeed, Mac tried man-to-man, zone and traps on defense. None of it worked. By halftime, the Norse lead ballooned to 36-18 on 14 of 18 shooting, including three of five from 3-point land.
Things improved a little for the Braves in the third stanza as sophomore point guard Nick George found the range for nine points. But Mac could only trim the margin to 49-35 heading to the fourth, and Northfield quickly pushed the lead back to 18 and never looked back.
Van Duyne and Stith paced the Norse with 18 and 16 points respectively, while Culver dished nine assists and Covurn added six.
George paced the Braves with 16 points, and Jarrid Bradley added 12 points and six boards. Bradley’s points didn’t come easy, though, as he shot just 5 of 13 from the floor against the Norse defense.
Maconaquah will look to get back to .500 on Saturday as they travel to Pioneer.
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