HOOPS: Titans smack Braves

By MARK SALUKE
Tribune sportswriter

February 13, 2009 12:17 am

— Despite Taylor and Maconaquah being out of the hunt for the Mid-Indiana Conference boys basketball crown before their Thursday night conference meeting started, the Titans desperately needed to break the three-game slide they entered on.
Sometimes desperation brings out the best in a team.
Taylor jumped out to a 20-8 lead at the end of the first quarter and never looked back, leading by double digits the rest of the way and bettering the Braves by a final of 72-55.
Taylor improved to 7-9 (3-3 MIC) while the loss dropped Maconaquah to 4-12 and 1-5 in the conference.
“This was a game we had to see as a must-win, desperation game,” Taylor coach Jeff Fisher said. “We needed to come in and set the tone. We’ve been too complacent in games recently and we were able to get away from that trend [Thursday].
“We wanted Drake Herr taking control in the paint early, and we wanted to be very aggressive and force some turnovers and get some easy baskets early.”
Taylor did just that, going inside to Drake Herr on its first two trips down the floor for two quick baskets. Reomey Northington added two more baskets for the Titans off two Maconaquah turnovers as Taylor jumped out 8-0.
“This was a game that was decided in the first two minutes,” Maconaquah coach Luke Zartman said. “Give Taylor credit for the early defensive pressure and for coming out with a ready-to-play attitude. That attitude floored us to the point where we had that deer-in-headlights look, and I don’t think we ever recovered mentally from that early hole we found ourselves in.”
Drake Herr netted eight of his game-high 21 points in the first quarter at Taylor built a 20-8 lead at the first stop.
Northington followed Drake Herr with 14 points, and Seth Vautaw added 12.
Cody Hinton chipped in 10 off the bench for Taylor, including two 3-pointers that upped the Titan lead to 18 less than a minute into the second quarter. After leading by as many as 20 in the period, the Titans held a 39-20 advantage at the half.
Taylor took its largest lead on a Northington 3-pointer to go up by 28 (54-26) as the third quarter came to a close, but Maconaquah’s Devin Shaffer answered with a trey on the other end to make it 54-29 at the third stop.
Shaffer had 12 points in a reserve role for the Braves, while Nick George paced the Braves’ scoring with 16.
After shooting a dismal 30 percent (12 of 40) in the first three quarters, Maconaquah hit its first three shots of the final quarter, going on a 7-0 run to start the frame, but it didn’t put much of a dent in the Titan lead.
Taylor will finish up MIC play on Saturday afternoon when Eastern pays a visit to Center Court. Taylor would like to avenge its 70-53 loss to the Comets in the Howard County Tournament.
Maconaquah will also see hardwood action Saturday afternoon when it plays host to Pioneer.