Inconsistent Burlington Central falls short
Same team. Same gym. Same decent looks at the basket. Completely different result.
Less than 24 hours after the Burlington Central boys basketball team shot 55 percent from the field and scored 85 points in a win over Morris, the Rockets sank only 24.6 percent of their field-goal attempts in a 60-48 loss to Seneca at the Plano Christmas Classic Thursday.
Burlington Central took a 6-2 lead in the first quarter on a pair of swished 3-pointers by junior guard Ryan Ritchie, however, the Rockets made just 1 of their ensuing 22 attempts from 3-point range.
“It’s the same shots,” frustrated Central coach Brett Porto pointed out. “I don’t know if confidence is an issue. If we don’t hit our first couple shots, maybe we let it go to our heads or something like that. It’s two completely different teams in less than 24 hours. I don’t even know what to say.”
Burlington Central (7-6) will face Indian Creek for 11th place today at 11:30 a.m. Seneca (10-4) will play Princeton for ninth place at 1 p.m.
Senior guard Ray Hunnicutt was responsible for 58 percent of Burlington Central’s offensive output against Seneca. Hunnicutt scored 28 points and hauled in 15 rebounds, but he’d much prefer to be part of a balanced scoring effort. He represented 15 percent of the offense in Wednesday’s victory over Morris.
“We were forcing passes and our offensive rebounding wasn’t as good as it should be,” Hunnicutt said. “We got a lot of points (against Morris) off that. We have guys who are floating around and not going in and getting the offensive rebounds. We have to do better.”
The Rockets edged the Fighting Irish on the boards 36-33 and committed 11 turnovers to Seneca’s 13. However, the basketball simply did not drop through the rim often enough for Central to cut into Seneca’s vulnerable second-half lead.
Central stayed within 29-26 at halftime, thanks to a 12-point second quarter by Hunnicutt, and the Rockets pulled within 31-29 on the third 3-pointer of the game by Ritchie (9 points).
The Fighting Irish responded with a 6-0 run. Junior forward Chris Lee scored 2 free throws and added a putback and guard Peyton Schrag penetrated via a jump-step move to up the lead to 8 points for the first time.
Seneca shot 45 percent from the floor, but coach Russ Witte was effusive in his praise after his team knocked off one of the contenders in the Big Northern East.
“It was absolutely phenomenal,” Witte said of the way his team played. “It was the first time all year they came out and executed flawlessly. Burlington Central is an excellent team. They’re one of the best teams on the big side of the Big Northern (Conference). They run about seven or eight different defenses at you … I can’t say enough. We’ve been searching for this all year.”