Toronto taking its time
Huge second half lifts Shenandoah past Red Knights, 66-37
TORONTO -- All the Toronto boys basketball team needs at this point early in the season is time. Once it gets that, it can possibly make some noise.
But, for now, the Red Knights have to go with the flow and slowly take the work in progress day by day.
Toronto stepped on the court for the second time this year Tuesday night and the first at home against Shenandoah. Head coach Sean Tucker liked what he saw in the opening half, then the Zeps became too much to handle and ran away with a convincing 66-37 victory.
"The kids gave everything they had like we did the other night," Tucker said. "What we're trying to tell the kids is that it's going to come. Our conditioning is what we're lacking right now, and we're lacking it because we've been off from quarantining. We've only been back for four days, and out of those four, we've played two really good basketball programs.
"Shenandoah is a really good team. Those guys have been playing for three years together at the varsity level."
The Zeps (4-0) held a slim 25-21 lead at halftime and trailed Toronto (0-2), 15-11, after the opening period. In the words of Tucker, basketball is a game of runs.
Shenandoah stretched out a 10-0 scoring run for more than half of the second quarter. Following a pair of Shane Keenan layups to begin the third, cutting the margin to 25-24, the Zeps raced to a 23-3 run and led, 48-27, heading into the fourth. After Keenan's four points, Shenandoah scored the next 15 points before Jay Hanlin buried a 3-pointer. Then, it scored the final eight points.
"With Toronto coming out of quarantine and not practicing much -- and hats off to them to be willing to play -- we felt like conditioning would be a factor," Shenandoah head coach Marc Smith said. "We're a pressure defensive team anyway, but we felt like that was the way to go, and they may eventually hit a wall to where we can go on a run. That's what ended up happening in the third quarter. It started happening in the second quarter, but we couldn't get a shot to go down."
After Toronto scored 15 points in the opening frame, the Zeps allowed just 22 the rest of the way, an average of 7.3 points per quarter.
"Offensively, we've tried to simplify things because we saw weaknesses during Saturday's game (against Indian Creek) and in practice," Tucker said. "They did an outstanding job. The problem is we're only practicing for two hours, and you're so limited on what you want to do. Press break is one thing we're not strong at right now. You have to pick and choose (what to work on) to catch up because you're so far behind.
"We have a great group of seniors that are frustrated right now, but they understand. It's our job to make sure that they believe that we can get there. Conditioning is where it's at, and time will help. We are very blessed that we got to play basketball (Tuesday), and we just hope to be back tomorrow."
Tuesday's game was added on both team's schedule Sunday.
Christian Duniver paced the Zeps with 24 points, nine rebounds and five assists -- all game highs. Max McVicker tallied 17 points and four boards. Grant Stottsberry produced 10 points, seven rebounds and two assists.
The Zeps have been affected by COVID-19, as well. They only had one athlete with varsity experience coming off the bench.
"The bottom line is that (Toronto) had a really good game plan. Their zone was used to try and extend us and make us jack the ball early," Smith said. "We fell right into jacking the 3 after 3 after 3 early. Any coach would typically tell you that you want to shoot the 3 from inside out, and we were doing a very poor job of that. But, like I said, I think the game came down to conditioning and us wearing them down."
For the Red Knights, Keenan had 11 points and eight rebounds. Anthony Myslinsky collected 12 points, seven rebounds and one assist. Bryson Anderson added six points, seven rebounds and two dimes.
DARK KNIGHTS
Similar to the season opener on Saturday, Tucker felt fortunate to play on Tuesday, following the news of the girls program being shut down for the third time in less than two months. The girls won their season opener on Saturday over Buckeye Local, then went into quarantine the next day.
This marks the third time the girls have been paused. They and the boys squad went into quarantine during Week 10 of the football season, then again around Thanksgiving week.
"I feel terrible for the girls program because that is a great group," Tucker said. "Rusty (Hodgkiss) really loves that group. You hate to see anything bad happen, especially when you have a really good group of kids. They play hard for him. Hopefully, they get out of this quarantine and get back. We're really catching a bad break at Toronto.
"We want to give a shoutout to our athletic director (Mark Ferrell). He has done an outstanding job with the boys and girls programs. He's been working seven days a week on the phone. Our schedule has changed a million times in a week. He has not taken a break. There have been times where we told him to take a day off, but he can't."
JV CONTEST
The Zeps won the jayvee game, 41-31. Xander Fairchild led Shenandoah with 10 points, while Toronto's Nolan Dickinson had 16.
UP NEXT
Shenandoah: Tentatively hosts Fort Frye on Friday.
Toronto: Tentatively hosts River on Friday.
Shenandoah 66, Toronto 37
Shenandoah 11 14 23 18 -- 66
Toronto 15 5 7 10 -- 37
SHENANDOAH (4-0): Duniver 8 7-10 24; Denius 0 3-4 3; Wentworth 0 1-2 1; G. Stottsberry 4 0-2 10; McVicker 8 1-2 17; Snyder 3 0-1 6; M. Stottsberry 1 2-4 4; Van Fleet 0 0-0 0; House 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 24, 14-25: 66.
TORONTO (0-2): Anderson 2 2-5 6; Hanlin 2 0-0 5; Myslinsky 3 3-5 12; Reeves 2 0-3 4; Keenan 5 1-4 11; Matyas 0 0-0 0; Chociej 0 0-0 0; Close 0 0-0 0; Dickinson 0 2-3 2; Baker 0 0-0 0; Ensell 0 0-0 0; Karaffa 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 14, 8-20: 37.
3-POINT GOALS: Shenandoah 4 (Duniver, G. Stottsberry 3); Toronto 1 (Hanlin). REBOUNDS: Shenandoah 37 (Duniver 9); Toronto 30 (Keenan 8). ASSISTS: Shenandoah 10 (Duniver 5); Toronto 5 (Anderson 2). TURNOVERS: Shenandoah 9; Toronto 17.