Culver Basketball Sectional: Trojans Shoot Down Satellites In Hot Start
CULVER — It’s been a trying season for Triton, and after the program’s roughest regular-season finish in more than a decade, the Trojans needed a fresh start in the IHSAA state tournament.
That’s exactly what head coach Jason Groves preached to his players that they’d be getting at Tuesday’s Class A Sectional 51-opener with South Central, and that’s exactly what the Trojans gave themselves. Triton — which has won seven sectional championships and enjoyed numerous, deep postseason runs in the past 10 years under Groves’ stewardship — showed glimpses of the old program magic, knocking down every shot in sight, sharing the ball, playing lockdown defense and making the hustle plays that don’t show up in the stat books as the young squad finally looked to be coming of age in a dominant, 55-39 win over the Satellites in the tourney opener at Culver Community.
“Give our guys credit. They did what we needed to do to win,” said Groves. “I told them before the game ‘We just want to go 1-0. All the stuff we’ve been through throughout the season is done. It’s over with. Let’s just go 1-0.’ They took that to heart, and now our goal is to go 2-0.”
With the game tied up at 16 midway through the second stanza, Triton used a run of 11 straight points spanning from Drew Stichter’s diving offensive rebound and assist of a Ross Johnson bucket in the lane at the 4:25 stop to Stichter’s slashing pull-up from the paint with 2:04 remaining in the half to grab a 27-16 cushion. After two lead changes and four ties, the Trojans (7-14) never relinquished the lead again on the way to the win, their first in six games.
On the way to the victory, Triton shot the ball about as well as it has all season with 54.3 percent efficiency from the floor and 9-of-15 (60 percent) accuracy from beyond the arc. Junior point guard Beau Hepler buried 4 of 8 3-pointers on his way to a game-high 13 points, and sophomore guard Quentin Thornburg knocked down 3 of 4 triples on his way to nine to lead Triton’s reserves, who chipped in 19 combined points Tuesday. Seven Trojans made the scoring column and five — Hepler, Johnson, Thornburg, Dylan Hensley and Tyler Heckaman — were at or approaching double figures as the team registered 16 assists on 19 made shots, including four apiece from Stichter and Hepler and three helpers from Johnson.
“Our kids felt it tonight. It was nice to see them hit some shots. We’ve struggled with that all year long. We’ve had games where we’ve shot in the low 20 percents,” recalled Groves.
“I think it’s just confidence. If kids have the mentality that they can hit them and they can knock them down, they can. We’ve had games where we’ve hit like this. Not very many, but at the same time I think it’s about confidence. Our kids were looking to shoot, looking to knock down the shot, and once one person hits it, the kids get excited, and it gets contagious. It’s nice to see them knock down some shots tonight.”
While Hepler and Thornburg were making it rain from deep and Heckaman was clicking inside in his first sectional outing, the Trojans got a steady start from their seniors.
Stichter recorded an all-around stat line of five points, four assists and two steals, Johnson was his usual self en route to 10 points, seven rebounds, three assists and a steal, and Max Slusser gave the team a defensive spark early. But no one was bigger at the outset than Hensley, who gave Triton five first-quarter points and took two charges in the first half. The senior forward would land in foul trouble with two infractions early in the second frame and a third midway through the third, but in his absence, the Trojans got very solid play from their bench, including sophomores Thornburg, Heckaman and Jared Bules.
“We had a lot of different guys step up,” said Groves. “Quentin hitting those shots was big and kind of opened up everything else. I thought Dylan Hensley played really well, especially getting off to a good start. He got in major foul trouble, but we had different guys step up because of that foul trouble and did a nice job — knocked down big shots, and, for the most part, took care of the ball.”
South Central (5-18) had three players score in double figures as Carson Husmann, Trent Smoker and Jason Hughes all netted 11 points in a balanced performance for the Satellites. But it wasn’t enough to match the depth of Triton’s contributions, and South Central simply couldn’t keep pace with the Trojans’ hot shooting, scoring at a mere 12-of-39 (30.8 percent) clip.
Triton now turns its attention to defending champion Oregon-Davis — which drew the bye at Culver — in Friday night’s early semifinal, scheduled for a 6:30 p.m. tip-off. The Trojans can expect another three-pronged attack from Bobcat seniors Trevor Risner, Jonathan Clark and Lance Campbell in a rematch of last year’s Sectional 51 finale, as well as this year’s season-opener. OD got the better of Triton by identical, 42-31 margins on both occasions, but those games feel like ages ago after Triton’s performance Tuesday.
“I’m going to have to check with the IHSAA; I think those guys have been playing for like six or seven years, haven’t they? Are they finally seniors?” joked Groves of Risner, Clark and Campbell. “I know I’m tired of playing against them, that’s for sure. They’re good players; they’re good kids, too. They know how to play basketball so we’ve got our work cut out. We know each other; we’ve seen each other a lot throughout the years. It’ll be another big battle. We’ve got to do a good job on those guys. It’s going to be an exciting match-up on Friday. Hopefully our kids respond.”