Published: February 27, 2008 11:48 pm            

Northwestern whips BC in Frankfort Sectional

FRANKFORT — Northwestern’s boys basketball team started its campaign in the Class 3A postseason in convincing fashion Wednesday night. Northwestern scored the first four points of the game against Benton Central and never looked back, leading wire-to-wire in a 66-50 victory over the Bison in the opening round of the Frankfort Sectional.

The No. 5-ranked Purple Tigers advance to face Frankfort, a 71-59 winner over West Lafayette in Wednesday’s second game, in a semifinal round game at 6 p.m. Friday. Northwestern beat Frankfort 60-43 in the regular season.

Northwestern, the defending Class 2A champion, clicked on offense from the onset, racing to a 24-15 after one quarter. Each of the Purple Tigers’ starting five scored in the opening eight minutes.

“I thought the kids did a really nice job of moving the basketball,” NW coach Jim Gish said. “They did a nice job of moving themselves. We really worked hard on screening and moving and boy the kids did a great job of that. When you do those things, you can get some easy looks.”

The Tigers (19-2) got plenty of open looks close to the rim. Northwestern hit 26 of 49 shots for the game and spread the scoring across each position. Up front, post player Zavier Sanders scored 14 while Camron Cossell had 11. On the wing, Taylor Richardson scored nine while guards Josh Maggard and Kirk Beachy added 13 and 12, respectively.

Beachy’s dozen points demonstrated Northwestern’s efficiency. Each of his five hoops was a layup with Maggard assisting on three — including two alley-oop layups — and Cossell and Sanders feeding him for one each.

The same alert passing put Richardson in position for his points — all on 3-pointers. Maggard assisted on two of the treys with Richardson’s final bucket serving as a backbreaker. Maggard deflected a pass in Northwestern’s halfcourt defense, Sanders picked up the loose ball and found Maggard in transition. Richardson hit a spot on the right wing outside the arc and Maggard’s pass found him for a quick-strike trey with less than a minute to go before halftime. That gave NW a 41-27 lead at halftime.

“First of all, they’re very good,” BC coach Kyle Spray said. “They’re an experienced team who’s played together for a long time and the two guys it all goes through [Maggard and Sanders] are four-year varsity players.

“The one thing that impressed me was how well they passed. It’s give and take trying to guard them and when you take away something, you’ve got to give away something and they did a good job finding each other.”

The Tigers also turned the game their way defensively. Northwestern led by nine points in the first quarter and got six points by converting steals in the press into quick points. When they had the ball, the Tigers were more secure. Northwestern didn’t commit a turnover until 2:32 remained before halftime when the Purple Tigers held a 38-26 lead.

“We just wanted to make sure and keep tempo at our pace to start the game,” Gish said. “We didn’t know how much damage the press would actually do and it was something we thought would get us a lot turnover wise [BC had just 12 total] but we wanted to make sure we put the tempo at the pace that we wanted.”

Benton Central (7-15) had one thing it could do to threaten Northwestern — get the ball to its trio of driving frontliners. But solid interior play from those three juniors wasn’t enough. Taylor Schoen scored 26 points while Tyler Schluttenhofer scored 13 and Jordan Brier six. The rest of the Bison, who had just one senior on the roster, combined for just five points.

“I think really the biggest difference between the two teams is experience,” Spray said. “We’re a very young team and we don’t have much experience. Not only are they older, but they are tournament tested.”

Spray was impressed that Northwestern never let the Bison get on a run. Benton Central narrowed the gap to 24-19 early in the second quarter and was never that close again. Later, Cossell scored a hoop-and-harm layup and free throw off a nice driving feed from Maggard midway through the second quarter to make the score 36-24 Northwestern. The Tigers held a double-digit lead the rest of the night.

“Whenever we came back and made a basket, they did a good job of answering it and being patient and getting good shots,” Spray said.

        

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