Batavia learns from a loss
It doesn't go down as standard scouting procedure, but Luke Horton and his Batavia teammates had a good reason for not wanting to know much about their opponents in Wednesday's Elgin Holiday Tournament semifinals.
Matched up against nationally ranked La Lumiere, a boarding school out of LaPorte, Ind. which fields five Division I recruits, you can't blame the Bulldogs for not caring which player was headed to Purdue, Southern Illinois, New Mexico, etc.
"We tried not to look them up online," Horton said. "A lot of our friends were talking about them. We just wanted to play them strong."
Batavia (4-6) did just that early, pulling within 25-21 when Micah Coffey connected on a pair of long jumpers late in the second quarter.
The Lakers (10-1), whose only loss is to Oak Hill, responded with a 9-0 burst in the final 2:28 of the first half to open a 34-21 halftime lead.
Batavia then saw leading scorer Cole Gardner go down after a blow to his head early in the third quarter. Gardner did not return, and Batavia got outscored 17-4 in the third quarter on the way to a 59-35 loss.
The Bulldogs will play Neuqua Valley for third place at 6:45 p.m. Thursday.
"The first half we played them well," Horton said. "When Cole got hurt a little of the morale went down."
La Lumiere actually played without its top two players, 6-foot-9 Indiana-bound Hanner Perea, who averages 17 points and 13 rebounds and was at his sister's first communion, and 6-5 Purdue recruit and leading scorer Rapheal Davis, who was attending his grandmother's wake.
Don't feel too bad for Lakers coach Alan Huss. He still had Antonio Drummond, headed to SIU, and Aaron Emmanuel both score 14 points. Seven-foot New Mexico recruit Obij Aget added 11 points including one sequence when he blocked a shot on one end and threw down an alley-oop dunk on the other.
The Lakers turned to the arc and hit five 3-pointers in the first quarter to go up 17-10. The Bulldogs held one lead in the game 4-3 on 2 Gardner free throws and were tied for the last time after Horton drove for a score to make it 6-6.
"I thought our guys played very unselfishly without relying on two guys you can just throw the ball to and get baskets," Huss said. "You take those two guys out we get a little more perimeter oriented."
Horton compared playing the Lakers to facing Simeon last year at Night of Hoops.
"Coming in the mindset is you can't make many mistakes and you have to play as hard as you can for as long as you can," said Horton, who relished the chance to play this level of opponent.
"How many times can you say you played a 7-footer? It's a good measuring stick to see where we are. We won three games in a row but this is definitely back down to earth."
The Bulldogs turned the ball over six times in the second quarter and eight in the third when the game got away. After Coffey's 3 made it 25-21, the Lakers went on a 23-2 run to make it a 48-23 game.
"In a game like that your margin for error is very small," Batavia coach Jim Roberts said. "There were a couple possessions we did not play that way and as a result the ball goes the other way and it's a score.
"There are very few uncontested passes. There were very few times there was an easy catch. That is a tribute to them."
The scariest moment for Batavia came when Gardner fell to the floor with 5:09 left in the third quarter after taking an elbow to his head. He scored all 10 of his team-high points in the first half including a stretch to open the second quarter when he battled the likes of 6-9 Purdue recruit Jay Simpson and the 7-footer Aget to score Batavia's first 6 points on tip-ins.
"One of the things that has been unique about Cole is for a kid that wide his footwork is pretty solid and he gets himself a good base from which to attack the basket," Roberts said.
Once Gardner came out of the game, trainers stopped the bleeding and said Gardner did not have a concussion. Roberts said Gardner looked good in the locker room after the game and his leading scorer might be able to play in the third-place game Thursday.
Coffey added 7 points and Horton and Zach Strittmatter both scored 6 for Batavia, who hit just 15 of 45 shots from the field.
"We were all really pumped up for the game thinking if we win are we going to be nationally ranked?" Horton said. "We believed the whole game. It's just sometimes they get on a run and we have to match that. We didn't tonight."
"I told our kids the neat thing about this is we don't have to wait a week and a half. We can come back tomorrow and play a pretty doggone good team."