Kennedy powers Trojans past Coalers
By MIKE WILLIAMS - Herald Correspondent
Shortly after the third quarter started Friday night in Coal City, the underdog Coalers were executing their game plan, and standing toe to toe with the undefeated Dwight Trojans.
To borrow from a popular song this time of year, it was beginning to look a lot like … an upset. The Coalers had scored the first five points of the period, and trailed by just one point.
Then Dwight flipped the proverbial switch, and pulled away as fast as Santa on his sleigh.
After Alec Smith opened the second half with a 3-point basket and a baseline 10-footer within the first minute to pull Coal City to within 20-19, Dwight proceeded to go on a 21-2 run, propelling the Trojans to a 53-31 win at Coal City to stay unbeaten on the season.
Coal City fell to 3-6 overall, 0-4 in the Interstate Eight Conference.
Dwight was backed by a dominating performance by junior Jens Kennedy, who led all scorers with 29 points.
Kennedy scored nine of his points in the first quarter, but the rest of his teammates only contributed one other point, on a Jason Karstens free throw, as Dwight finished the period with a 10-6 lead.
“What we need to understand is, we’re going to get other team’s best efforts every night, and especially at the very beginning of games,” said Dwight coach Chris Gibson after his team improved to 8-0 on the season, 3-0 in the conference. “We played a bit lethargic to start with, and we’ve got to get a little better in that area when we come out to start a game.”
Dwight continued to struggle well into the second quarter, going over four minutes without a point. Meanwhile, the Coalers weren’t exactly lighting the nets on fire, not registering a field goal until the three minute mark. However, they were chipping away at Dwight’s lead by doing what they wanted to do.
“We wanted to patient on offense,” Coal City head coach Chris Spencer said. “We know that if we match up man on man, we’re going to struggle there. We wanted to make every possession important. In the first half, we did that.”
Dwight increased their one point lead midway through the second quarter with a layup from senior Travis Roeder (6 points), and a three point play from Kennedy. After Coal City junior Jack Dillon (a team high 7 points) hit a 3 from the wing, the Trojans turned the ball over, and Coaler senior Nate Carpenter’s basket made it a one-point game again in favor of Dwight.
Dillon Harris (4 points) of Dwight scored from close range, and then Kennedy closed the half with another 3-point play to give Dwight a 20-14 lead at halftime.
“The Coalers came out and were really ready to play, and they gave us their best shot from the very beginning and we didn’t handle that so well in the first couple of quarters,” Gibson said. “We made a few adjustments at halftime. We needed to come out and play our game, look for transition situations and then obviously look for our big guys in a high-low situation, and we started doing that a little more and got some distance in the second half and we were able to pull away with the win.”
Dwight’s third quarter surge coincided with a Coal City drought as the Coalers went over five minutes without scoring a point, following the 5-point burst from Smith to start the quarter.
The Trojans on the other hand got field goals in that quarter from junior Cal Vigna (4 points), Roeder, Karstens, Harris and Kennedy, and Dwight also made 6-of-7 free throws.
“The third quarter has been our best quarter all year, but we have to learn that the effort has to be there from start to finish,” Gibson acknowledged. “We can’t just rely on that third quarter because at some point in time we’re going to start playing teams that are similar in record to us and are going to give us some real heated competition, and we’ve got to be ready to play right off the bat.”
Dwight figures to be tested in the Prairie Central Hawk Classic after Christmas. Their first opponent is Lexington.
“We’re the one-seed down there,” said Gibson. “We didn’t play like the one-seed tonight, so we’re going to have to be ready. There’s some pretty good competition at that tournament.”
Coal City will travel to Illiana Christian on Tuesday before playing in the Plano Christmas Classic beginning December 26th. Coach Spencer feels his team is making progress.
“I think we took a step forward overall tonight,” he said. “We just weren’t able to put all four quarters together, but it’s a bit of a confidence boost for us. I told the guys that we got better tonight, and that’s what our goal is every night.”
Dwight won the sophomore contest 52-47.
