At 6-foot-3, Eli Lightfoot stands out for the Panthers as their tallest player. He didn’t stand out last Friday against a towering Central Minnesota Christian team, because even he looked small against the highly-ranked Bluejays.
With a lineup featuring a 6-foot-7 forward, and 6-foot-3 and 6-foot-1 guards, the Bluejays present match-up problems for any team in team in the area. And last Friday, the Panthers found out first-hand that CMCS’s height, coupled with a fluid offense and an in-yourface defense, is too much for most teams to handle. It was for the Panthers for sure, who suffered easily their worst loss of the year, 10139, in a Camden Conference tilt.
“We’ve been in a tough stretch of games against a lot of really good teams, but I think they were the best one,” TMB coach Ryan Kruse said. “Even when we did things right, it didn’t look good. Everyone was so tall, and (Thursday) was the same (against Southwest Christian).”
Things started out bad and only got worse from there for TMB. CMCS opened the game with a 13-4 spurt, continuously exposing the shorter Panthers down low. On the other side of the court, the Panthers had trouble penetrating into the lane, and even getting off clean passes and good looks at the basket.
The Bluejays’ lead ballooned to 25-6, 8 minutes into the game, and it was 36-8 when Aiden Sanow hit TMB’s first three at the 6:23 mark of the half. Sanow hit another three the next time down the court, but CMCS, undefeated through the first 10 games, then scored the final 15 points of the half, including seven straight from Caleb Asake, who was one of six Bluejays to score in double figures.
“They play together really well and they know where each other is going to be,” Kruse said. “They make the right passes and makes it look like we’re doing nothing defensively. They’ve done that to everybody all year.”
Indeed. The Bluejays are averaging a shade over 88 points per game, and Friday marked the second time they passed the 100-point mark. They have beaten their opponents by an average of 44 points. That includes a 22-point victory over Dawson-Boyd, which went into that game with just one loss.
“I knew they were going to score a lot of points; I was hoping we would’ve performed better on offense,” Kruse said. “We haven’t executed very well when teams are pressing us, and we have to do a better job of that.”
When Kruse called this a “tough stretch” for the Panthers, he wasn’t kidding. TMB has lost four of its last five games, albeit to some of the best teams it will see this year.
The 101 points allowed Friday was the most since a 105-64 loss to D-B in the Camden Conference title game last February.
“We have to give more effort,” he said. “I thought late in the first half we really stopped playing hard for a while because we were really frustrated. We would turn it over and not getting back on defense. I hadn’t seen that from them all year. I understand it’s frustrating right now, but if you do that once, it’s easy to do it again.”
TMB was led by Griffin Zick’s nine points. Sanow had eight points, and Jackson Kruse scored eight as well to go along with nine boards.
• Parker Kline had 14 points in a 50-39 loss for the Panther B-squad team. Jackson Kruse had nine points, and Nolan Carlson had five points and three assists. Carson Lanoue dished out four assists.
CMCS 61 40 — 101 TMB 14 25 — 39 CMCS
M. Asake 4-8 0-0 10, Roelofs 6-6 0-0 12, Carter Taatjes 3-7 5-9 13, Chase Taatjes 0-1 0-0 0, Wiederbrink 9-14 0-2 18, De Groot 2-3 0-0 4, Rime 1-2 0-0 3, C. Asake 7-8 0-0 17, Gerdes 7-12 2-3 16, L. Tattjes 3-5 0-0 6, Punt 1-1 0-0 2. Totals: 45-69 2-5 101. Three-pointers: 9-19. Assists: 35. Rebounds: 33. Steals: 13.
Turnvoers: 8.
TMB
Sanderson 1-4 1-2 3, Zick 4-10 0-0 9, Carson Lanoue 1-1 1-2 3, Xiong 0-6 2-2 2, Morgan 1-2 0-0 2, Kruse 3-8 2-2 8, Sanow 3-10 0-1 8, Kline 0-2 0-0 0, Lightfoot 2-4 0-0 4. Totals: 15-48 5-9 39. Threepointers: 4-18 (Sanow 2-5, Carson Lanoue 1-1, Zick 1-4, Morgan 0-1, Kruse 0-1, Kline 0-1. Assists: 12 (Carson Lanoue 6, Kruse 2, Xiong 2, Zick, Sanow). Rebounds: 20 (Kruse 9, Sanders 4, Sanow 3, Lightfoot 2, Zick, Morgan). Steals: 4 (Xiong, Sanow, Kline, Lightfoot).
Turnovers: 21. JAN. 9: SWC 92, TMB 52
TMB allowed 63 firsthalf points in a 92-52 loss to Southwest Christian in Camden Conference play last Thursday.
Griffin Zick led the way with 18 points, and also had six assists and four steals. Jackson Kruse added seven points, and Aiden Sanow six.
• Parker Kline had 16 points and Kruse had 13 as the B-squad team fell, 60-47.
