Larkin legs out win over Marian Central
One of the decisions Larkin boys basketball coach Deryn Carter pondered prior to the Royals' 85-73 win at the Hinkle Holiday Classic Tuesday was to figure out whether or not to allow Marian Central's dynamic guard Adam Pischke to go off in the scoring column and clamp down on every other Hurricane in the process.
It turned out Carter's game plan was right on. Pischke had his night - a game-high 38 points on 13-for-26 shooting that including 22 points coming in a frenetic first half - but the guard cooled off for 16 points in the second half and no other Hurricane scored more than 8 points as the Royals stepped up their defense, turned to Daniel McFadden down low and turned a track meet around into a half-court game in the third quarter.
Larkin (10-4), which led by 2 at the half, outscored Marian (6-5) 26-12 in the third quarter as guard Charles Sanders scored 7 of his team-high 23 points and McFadden dominated in the post, being the difference maker with 9 of his 17 points in the third which allowed Larkin, which shot a 54.2 percent clip from the field on 32 made shots and registered 34 points in the paint, to win its pool with a 3-0 mark.
It also marked the Royals' sixth win in 7 games over a 2-week span, which only gets tougher in a rematch of last year's third-place game against Jacobs on Friday at 7:30 p.m. in a Hinkle Classic semifinal.
"It's hard to say you did better on a guy when he had 16 (in the second half) but we did a better job in the second half," Carter said of his team's effort on Pischke. "We just kind of reminded guys to play inside-out when we get into the half-court. The first half was so up and down … fast break … hectic on both ends. Our guards did a good job of keeping us in the game."
Pischke was limited to just 6 points in the third on 2 shots and 2 free throws as the Royals flanked a 14-0 run spanning 2:27. McFadden and Christian Negron scored on two 3-point plays while McFadden blocked a shot and finished on the other end in the same sequence for a 10-point Royals lead. McFadden showed an array of post moves while AJ Hunter's steal and layup pushed the lead to 12. Sanders recorded Larkin's third 3-point play of the quarter and Hunter's 3-pointer made it 67-53 with 1:07 left.
"It was more of our defense and us picking up our intensity," Sanders said. "It was basically like play your defense. (Pischke) hit a lot of tough shots. If he kept hitting them, that makes him a good player but we kept playing our regular defense."
Larkin opened the game with a 9-0 run but saw that turn into a 5-point deficit in the second quarter thanks to Pischke, who followed up his 13-point first with 9 in the second. But two of Negron's 15 points (9 rebounds) came on a momentum-building two-handed dunk off a Keion Adams steal with 45 seconds left in the half for a 43-38 Royals lead and Hunter (13 points off the bench) and Keyvon Kyles (10 points, 5 assists, 3 steals) provided the balance the Hurricanes didn't have the rest of the way.
"A team like that, they're not going to give up," Hurricanes' coach Curtis Price said. "You can play some other teams where you can get up on them and extend on them but a team like that, they're not going to play like that and they showed it."