The Cardinals boys basketball team could not miss from beyond the arc as they cashed in on 14 3-pointers in their 61-24 win against Ottawa Tuesday night.
Senior Cole Parker and junior Logan Sullivan led the way by hitting a combined 11 3-pointers. Parker, who finished with a total of 19 points, said the team’s ball movement played a big role in the flurry of long balls.
“I thought we got to the middle of the zone pretty well and then we found shooters,” Parker said. “We moved it pretty well on offense.”
Parker also gave credit to his teammates who play down low for finding the open shooter.
“I mean, they’re always looking for the open guy,” Parker said. “When they find our open shooters, we’re a tough team to stop. So, and when it falls, it makes it look that much better.”
One of those players, senior Conor Dunback, said the constant off-ball movement from the shooters helped create several good looks.
“When the shooters kick it in and relocate, it’s hard for the defensive guys to just know where everyone is at,” Dunback said.
Dunback, senior Kale Hammerschmidt and sophomore Ty Deterding each added a 3-pointer of their own as well.
For the second game in a row, the Cardinals were ferocious on the defensive side of the ball. At halftime, Ottawa only had two points.
“Part of it is just it wasn’t their night, but we did have something to do with it,” head coach Kyle Deterding said. “We were competing pretty hard, kind of making it tough on them to get decent looks. We made it tough on them.”
The Cardinals recently played a close game against Ottawa on Jan 27. Dunback said the familiarity between the teams helped the Cardinals prepare for this game.
“In practice, we’ve been going over their plays a lot,” he said. “So, just knowing what the other team is going to do is pretty helpful.”
By studying Ottawa closely this week, the Cardinals understood how important it was to keep their opponent from getting in the paint in scoring, Parker said.
“We’ve watched a lot of film to game plan,” Parker said. “And kind of tried to like hold down the middle and keep them out of the lane, and I think we did a pretty good job of that in the first half and pretty much the whole game.”
The girls team had another frustrating night, losing their fourth game in a row by a score of 45-31 to Ottawa.
“I feel like we started off strong,” junior Parker Long said. “I felt like our ball movement has improved, and I think it just comes down to some things on defense like stepping in and taking a charge and fouls, and missed layups, which was kind of disappointing for us.”
Scoring has been an issue for the Cardinals of late. Senior Sawyer Schreiner said the team’s inability to score consistently is affecting them mentally.
“Shots weren’t falling in, and I think that was getting in our heads,” Schreiner, who had four points, said. “We kind of just fell apart because shots weren’t going in.”
Long led the team in scoring with 10 points, followed by junior Lainey Orr with seven.
When the Cardinals did start scoring the ball more in the third quarter, Ottawa had an answer to prevent the Cardinals from closing the gap.
Then in the fourth quarter, turnovers started to bite the Cardinals again. Long said this is another issue wearing on the team’s minds.
“We typically kind of stress out like once one ball gets turned over, we worry about and dwell on it the rest of the game,” Long said. “And I think that can lead to more turnovers, and we just need to start having a clear mind about those things.”
Head coach Brandon Parker said the team needs to start translating what they do in practice to the games, and he is looking for someone on the team to step up and be the change.
“Our recipe of not winning games, of turning the ball over and not executing is showing that it’s not working,” he said. “So we’re going to hopefully try something different, but that comes down to them. We’ll keep working with them. We love our kids, but you got to do it out here on this court Tuesday and Friday nights.”
Both teams will take on struggling Paola teams Friday night. Paola’s girls team has a record of 3-12 while the boys team is 2-12.
“We can’t overlook any team,” Cole Parker said. “We’re going to prepare just the same as we have for Ottawa and for every other team that we play.”
Schreiner said the girls team will try and put this loss mentally behind them and start a new slate against Paola.
The girls team will start play at 6 p.m. and the boys will follow at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
Reach reporter Jack Denebeim at [email protected].
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