CARROLLTON - An impressive second quarter performance on Tuesday by the Jersey Panthers was so devastating that their defensive objective was perfect.
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The Panthers pitched a 17-0 shutout in the second quarter and road that out the rest of the way as they defeated the Carrollton Hawks for the fourth straight year, 50-23 in Carrollton.
“We relaxed and played better offense in the second,” Jersey head coach Stote Reeder said. “We shut them out in the second quarter and obviously we were happy about that.”
For Jersey (12-13), this was the first time they had played an Illinois class 1A team after having played mostly 3A schools with a couple of 2As in the mix.
Jersey's Zac Ridenhour led all scorers with 19 points, including four three-pointers. Drake Kanallakan added 8 points.
“Obviously when you don’t score in the second quarter you’re not going to hold off a 3A team that’s hungry,” Carrollton head coach Jeff Krumwiede said.
Jeremy Watson scored seven points and Luke Gillingham followed with five points for Carrollton.
Midway through the first quarter the Hawks were down 13-4, but they responded with a 7-0 run to finish out, which was concluded by a Jayce Arnett baseline three-pointer.
Things were looking positive for Carrollton (19-6) going into the second quarter.
“At that 13-11 mark I thought that we were going to be okay,” Krumwiede said.
The Panthers made adjustments by cranking up their intensity as they pressed the Hawks guards and then made it hard to get open shots with their length.
“We got out and ran. One of the things we want to do is play transition and we decided not to in the first quarter for some reason,” Reeder said. “When we dictated the pace is when we opened the game up.”
Ridenhour scored eight of his 19 points in the quarter, including two triples with another trey coming from Blake Wittman.
Jersey sank a total of eight on the night.
“If our other guys can make shots, which they did, it opens things up pretty nicely for us,” Reeder said.
The rest of the Panthers points came in transition with some off of turnovers.
Even when the Hawks got an open look, they couldn’t knock down a shot to stop the bleeding and they ended up connecting on a season low of seven field goals.
It was 30-11 at halftime and things got better offensively for the Hawks as they scored 10 in the quarter, but the Jersey offense kept rolling.
Before the game Carrollton was dealt with a blow as Jerrett Smith, who’s been the Hawks top scorer and rebounder for the last handful of games, rolled an ankle right before the pre-game warm-ups concluded.
“He’s been our most effective overall player,” Krumwiede said. “Immediately we’re hit with that and that has a lot to do with us getting off to a bad start.”
Smith didn’t start, but did play in the first and second quarter, however he did not return for the second half.
The lopsided score gave Krumwiede the opportunity to put in several reserves that haven’t been able to see the floor much this season because the Hawks have been in several close ball games.
It was an experience Krumwiede felt that was vital.
“We got a chance to play a lot of guys that deserve minutes,” Krumwiede said. “We’ve had so many close games this year. We’ve had so many guys who work so hard in practice and don’t get quality minutes. Tonight they were able to play quite a bit.”
The Hawks have had moments of brilliant execution and then the opposite all season long.
Then there’s the trick of being mentally ready for games, which at times has been both auspicious and volatile.
“We have different levels of different of mental and emotional readiness to play basketball,” Krumwiede said. “We lacked the basketball skills, but it was also our approach that could’ve been better and I’ll take a lot of the credit for that. “We’ve been so inconsistent.”
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
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