Pontiac bows out prepared for season's second half
Pontiac bowed out of the 91st Pontiac Holiday Tournament Friday after suffering a 72-38 defeat at the hands of New Trier in the semifinal round of the fifth-place bracket.
As lopsided as the Indians' two losses in the tournament -‑ PTHS fell 85-41 to Simeon Thursday night ‑- were, they still showed marked improvement, particularly when measured by teams in recent years.
"Winning that first round game was great and I'm happy that we did it," PTHS head coach Matt Kelley said. "But now to take that next step and try to compete with these teams, we see what levels we have to raise the next bar. We at least raised the bar a little bit."
Like against Simeon, Pontiac was doomed by a lack of height and a lack of quickness to level of the opponents. These are issues Class 2A teams often deal with when they go up against top-level 3A and 4A programs.This was evident early on as the Trevians scored the game's first nine points. It didn't hurt that the team from Winnetka was knocking down about everything it put up.
"We do need to do a better job of closing out on shooters, making sure we're at least contesting a shot," Kelley said. "A mismatch won't get you beat but an uncontested shot will. There were a few of those and I wanted to change that."
"You live and die by (shooting) and today we made some shots," New Trier head coach Scott Fricke said."Pressuring and playing a fast pace was the thing we needed to do in this game. Our key was trying to speed them up a little bit."
The tempo favored New Trier, although it was something Pontiac can play. However, having to deal with it in less than 18 hours was taxing. It showed.
"We were a little tired," Kelley said.
Making things worse for the Indians was not making their shots. PTHS was getting looks but they weren't going in, certainly not at the rate of New Trier's offerings.
The Indians were just 3 of 21 shooting in the first half and finished at 14 of 42 (33 percent).
"I think sometimes we let our shooting dictate our defense a little bit," Kelley said. "It seems when we don't shoot well, our defense suffers a little bit. When we shoot well, our defense is really good. It's a mindset we have to get better at."
Seth Branscum came off the bench and hit a 3-pointer early in the second quarter, making it 24-11. But New Trier threw darts and connected on a trio of treys and a deuce for a run that matched Pontiac's output to that point.Branscum was the one member of the Tribe who reached double figures as he led Pontiac scoring with 12 points. He drained a quartet of triples with three coming in the fourth period when Kelley sat his starters.
It didn't matter who New Trier had in the game, the Trevians were making shots from all over and from anybody."They play together very, very well," Kelley said of the Trevians. "They're hard to defend because they don't care who gets the shot and they all move the same flow together. That's where we want to get to."
The Trevians placed 11 players in the scoring column, seven of them hit 3-pointers. Jake Feigen led the way with 12 points and 6-foot-10 Tyler Van Gorp added 11. Ian brown tallied 10 markers.
New Trier made 9 of 18 shots from beyond the arc in the first half and finished going 10-for-25. The Trevians made 31 of 54 shots from the field (57.4 percent) for the game.
New Trier (14-2) led 22-8 after the first quarter and led 41-16 at the break. It was 61-26 after three periods.Besides Branscum, making the scoring column for Pontiac (8-5) were Kerr Bauman with 8 points, Riley Weber with 7 and Henry Brummel checked in with 5 markers. Aithen Sullivan had 3 points, Logan Barnett scored 2 and Riley Johnson notched a free throw for his 1 point.
Pontiac will be back in action on Jan. 3 at Dwight as the Indians head into the season's second half.
This article originally appeared on Pontiac Daily Leader: Pontiac Indians bow out prepared for season's second half
