| AWAY | HOME | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| SMITHVILLE HIGH SCHOOL | VS | CHILLICOTHE HIGH SCHOOL | |
| 56 | 52 | ||
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smithville High School | 11 | 18 | 10 | 17 |
| Chillicothe High School | 9 | 13 | 12 | 18 |
When Coach Cool and the Chillicothe Hornets show up on your schedule, you’re never excited. It’s automatically going to mean a few things, they’re going to be extremely well coached, they’re going to be disciplined, they’re going to execute whatever game plan they are trying to do.
With Toby still out due to his ankle sprain, we also faced the challenge of only having 8 players available to us. Our biggest focus for Game 2 was showing an improvement with our focus and execution on the offensive side but really pressuring our guys to focus and turn their attention to the defensive end of the floor. Credit to our coaching staff for the film work we had done, both in reviewing our first game and scouting Chilli but we thought we had identified some areas which we thought could be the difference but it was still ultimately up to the guys to go out and execute the game plan and a few minutes into the 2nd quarter, when we were down 10-18, we needed a timeout.
It was a very memorable timeout for me because we remained very calm throughout. Not a coach or a player in that time out seemed overly concerned, concerned and not panicked. There was no arguing, no yelling, just a calm sense of “We’re okay. We’ve been here before. Keep doing what we do and we’ll be just fine.” which was hilarious considering most of them had in fact not been there before and we were only in the 2nd game of the season but I really did leave that timeout thinking “We’re good. We’re going to be okay” When you practice for a month with just 9 guys, those 9 guys really do get a great sense of who each other are. They trusted one another. We were very intentional about speaking about it but throughout that game, we would remind them to learn from Game 1. Focus. Trust the play call from the coaches. Execute the call. Be aggressive. Make them more uncomfortable on the defensive end, especially on the ball.
The next 12 minutes after the timeout, the boys really found their groove, going from down 7 to up by 15 points midway through the 4th quarter. Sophomore Austin Miller stepped up in a big way for us during this game as he made his first career start, we asked Austin mid-game to start picking up full-court and with his ball pressure, along with his teammates, he was +17 on the evening which led the team. Too often players get caught up on shooting and scoring but Austin is a tough, younger brother, and as he did vs. Issac and Spencer growing up, he just kept coming and coming. He’s got a bright future ahead of him. He helped turn the game around for us. Very proud of him. Ryker led us on the night with 24 points. Ryan Edwards and Spencer Engle led us in rebounds, each grabbing 8 on the night. Andrew Miller and Spencer Engle also had 11 points each. Our next opponent will be Savannah on Saturday at 10 AM!