Kaneland dispatches Sandwich to open Plano Christmas Classic
Kaneland may be the top seed at the 60th annual Plano Christmas Classic, but the Knights were without one of their starters as they opened play against Sandwich on Wednesday afternoon.
Despite senior Parker Violett being limited to cheering duty on the bench with a boot on his foot, the Knights pulled away from the stubborn Indians in the third quarter to earn a 72-47 victory.
Kaneland advances to take on eighth-seeded Hinckley-Big Rock at 5:30 p.m. Thursday while the Indians will be up early for a 9 a.m. game against Ottawa.
The Knights (10-3) were coming off of a pair of losses, an OT-decision against Morris on Dec. 19 and a 64-44 loss to Hampshire at Fiserv Stadium in Milwaukee last Thursday.
“I thought we responded today,” Knights coach Ernie Colombe said. “We battled and Sandwich plays tough. They play physical and our guys battled all night.”
Sophomore Isaiah Gipson received his first start for the Knights while juniors Luke Reinert and Preston Popovich made strong contributions off the bench.
Gipson scored 10 points while Popovich and Reinert each had seven points apiece.
“Luke’s a tough kid and he started some games early on for us,” Colombe said. “We have a lot of trust in him and with Parker out we had some guys step up. Isaiah (Gipson) stepped up. Luke (Reinert) stepped up. (Preston) Pop (Popovich) stepped up.”
Violett rolled his ankle while battling in OT at Morris.
“We’re hoping to get him back soon,” Colombe said. “One thing it does is we talk about opportunities with these guys a lot. Sometimes it’s not what you want, and we certainly don’t want a guy to get hurt, but how do you make the most of this now? We can’t turn back time with Parker, but somebody else can get an opportunity to make us better down the road. We saw a little bit of that with Luke, Isaiah and Pop stepping up. If we get everybody back and we’re playing like that then we’re going to be more dangerous down the road.”
Sandwich (3-7) trailed 24-13 after one quarter, but outscored the Knights 13-9 in the second quarter to pull within 33-26 at halftime.
“I didn’t think we played with energy all game,” Sandwich coach Kevin Kozan said. “But when we did play with energy, we played well. There were stretches where I felt we could compete with them.”
The Knights beat the Indians twice last season, both times by nine points.
“They’re a good team and they’re record might not show it,” Colombe said. “When we got the draw and we got the one seed, we were surprised to get the one seed to be honest. But then when we saw the draw and got Sandwich, we thought there’s no way we should be playing Sandwich, but it was the luck of the draw.”
Drawing attention from the Indians all game was Kaneland junior Freddy Hassan, who scored eight of his game-high 25 points on two-handed jams as he made 12-of-14 field goals. He also collected 10 rebounds and rejected three shots.
“You can’t go into him and think you can shot fake,” Kozan said. “I’ve only been here three years, but he’s probably the best shot blocker I’ve seen. He’s an elite shot blocker no matter where he’s playing.”
Reinert delivered a couple passes that resulted in triumphant finishes from Hassan.
“You have to draw the defenders and if someone is double-teamed then someone is open,” Reinert said. “I tried to bring energy and give Freddy some looks down low by driving and attacking and getting fouled once or twice.”
Troyer Carlson added nine points and six rebounds and Evan Frieders had eight rebounds for the Knights.
Sandwich shot just 30% (17-of-56) overall and just 17% (4-of-23) from three-point land.
Chance Lange’s lone 3-pointer just beat the halftime buzzer and was the team’s only 3-pointer until they made three over the final six minutes of the game.
“Before we finally hit those threes we were like 1-of-17 from three,” Kozan said .”We missed a lot of shots and we were getting good looks.”
Lange led the Indians with 13 points and three assists and Dom Rome had 10 points.