Lakeland Christian’s Landon Gause tries to work the ball inside during Tuesday’s loss at Fort Wayne Canterbury. InkFreeNews photos by Mike Deak

By Nick Goralczyk
InkFreeNews

FORT WAYNE – If Lakeland Christian Academy fans never have to see Will Shank again, it will be too soon.

The Cougars traveled to the Summit City Tuesday evening for their regular season finale and were welcomed by the buzzsaw that was Shank and the Canterbury Cavaliers. Shank dished out a season-high 33 points to help lift his team to a 68-30 win over LCA.

Shank started his night strong, scoring eight points in the first quarter. Despite a slow start from LCA in the opening period, the Cougars were able to stick around despite some poor shooting. Finding themselves down 8-0 before recording their first points of the game, LCA closed out the frame outscoring the home team 11-8 over the final three minutes and trailed just 16-11 going into the second.

But Shank saw that 11 points and must have thought, “Hey, I can do that.” The senior tallied 11 of his team’s 24 second quarter points. A five-point game was quickly out of hand as the Cavs went on a 12-0 run over a three minute stretch in the period, Shank accounting for half of the points during that run. Canterbury led 40-19 at the break.

Canterbury’s Will Shank celebrates with his family after scoring his 1,000th point Tuesday night.

The second half was far from fruitful for LCA’s offense as the Cougars were outscored 15-2 in the third and 13-9 in the fourth. Shank’s career night came to a crescendo in that final period as he hit a pair of free throws to give him exactly 1,000 career points. As if he wasn’t a terror enough in getting to the rim, Shank added seven rebounds, six assists and three steals. The senior, who was only able to suit up for nine games this season, is reportedly getting looks from several D-1 programs and LCA got a full taste of that potential talent.

What made Canterbury’s win so big was that coupled with Shank’s big effort was LCA’s worst offensive performance of the season.

“We just weren’t ready to play from the get-go,” stated LCA head coach Jake Ritchie. “We probably shot 20 percent from the floor tonight. We didn’t get some of those shots that normally go in for us in the first half. If they do, we probably have a little more juice in the second half. Our shooting obviously didn’t help anything tonight.”

Ritchie then addressed the elephant in the room.

“Shank is one heck of a player. We struggled walling him off all night. He got in the paint at will on us. It was a perfect storm of what he was doing and what we weren’t doing.”

Silas Gagnon was a bright spot for LCA offensively as he tallied a team-high 16 points, including the team’s first points of the night. Seth Martin and Hunter Rice each added seven points to round out the scoring efforts for the Cougars. Outside of Shank’s offensive prowess, Nile Adhami scored seven points for Canterbury. In total, 11 Cavaliers contributed to the scorebook Tuesday evening.

The good news for LCA about Tuesday’s contest is that it was the last one for the regular season and there is now a week to prepare for a run in the sectional. Ritchie knows his team’s offensive performance was a fluke against Canterbury and that is important going into the postseason.

“It’s just about trusting our offense right now,” Ritchie explained. “We shoot some quick shots at times and we can get those looks whenever. We just need to trust our offensive process that we’re going to pass up a good shot to get a better shot.

“We’re going to forget this game really quick. We have a week to go and we’ll do a little mental reset. Season one is over, season two starts tomorrow.”

LCA (9-10) will take on Smith Academy (2-13) in the North Miami Sectional Tuesday night with tip-off set for approximately 7:30 p.m. Canterbury (3-15) will play South Adams in the sectional at Bluffton on Wednesday evening.