COLLINSVILLE – Tuesday night's Southwestern Conference game between Granite City and Collinsville got off to a bit of a sluggish start.
The Kahoks led just 2-0 in the first three minutes of the opening quarter, then 5-0 about halfway through the term.
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Once they got untracked and things started going their way, Collinsville was hard to stop, opening up a 16-6 lead at quarter time and then taking advantage of Warrior mistakes to build a 40-13 lead at the long break en route to a 64-41 win at Fletcher Gym.
GCHS fell to 0-8 on the year, 0-4 in the SWC; CHS went to 4-5 on the year, 1-3 in the league.
“We shot it well early; that helped us,” said Kahok coach Darin Lee. “We were able to knock some shots down; we've got guys who can make shots, there's no question. We've got to get good looks and that was encouraging. We missed a few early, got a few offensive rebounds. Defensively, we did OK the first half – we didn't guard much in the second half.
“Granite's got a young team and they're trying to rebuild.”
Collinsville's win was just the tonic they needed going into the holiday break before next week's Prairie Farms-Collinsville Holiday Classic, Lee felt. “We needed that,” Lee said. “Our schedule's been brutal – everyone's schedule in the conference is brutal – and to get a win, that's important. It really helps your confidence.”
The Warriors entered the season with no returning players from last year's team. “We don't have any returning players on the varsity lineup from last season,” said first-year Warrior coach Raffi Karibian. “We're playing a lot of guys who played JV last year or we're playing kids that didn't even play last year, like freshmen or sophomores that are transfers, which translates to a lot of learning on the floor, which is difficult in our league.”
Marquis Shaw led the Warriors with 12 points on the night. “Marquis is getting better,” Karibian said. “He's another player with very little experience for the past three years. He's slowly becoming an effective inside-out threat for us. We've got to do a better job of running the offense and getting him the ball inside, and he needs to do a little bit better job on the defensive end for us, protecting our basket and rebounding.
“He's working hard and hopefully will be receptive to that and keep improving and stay positive.”
Freddy Edwards had 10 points for the Warriors on the night, with Devontay Mason adding eight. Collinsville was led by Austin Knight's 14, with Kenrique Brown adding 11 and Chandler Buehne and Ronnie Midgett nine each; Buehne and Braeden Lemp had six rebounds each for the Kahoks, with Keydrian Jones and Knight pulling down five each.
The Warriors will host Edwardsville at 7:30 p.m Thursday in a game that was rescheduled from last Friday night because of the weekend's freezing rain, then meet up with Quincy at 9:30 p.m. Dec. 28 in Day 1's final opening-round game of the Prairie Farms Classic; Collinsville meets Decatur MacArthur at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 28 in a Prairie Farms opening-round contest.
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