St. Edward cruises past Harvest Christian
Rarely are games won in the first quarter.
This one was.
Outscoring Harvest Christian Academy 27-0 in the first quarter and scoring the first 31 points of the game, St. Edward's boys basketball team used an early blitz in cruising to a 66-35 victory in first round action of the 9th Annual Warrior Thanksgiving Basketball Classic held at Westminster Christian Monday.
"Harvest is trying to establish a system and an identity something we went through a few years ago," said St. Edward coach PJ White. "We have a lot of inexperience and we are using this tournament to figure some things out. We came out with good intensity and did a good job of finding the open man. "
The Green Wave connected on 13-of-17 shots in the first quarter for a blistering 76 percent.
Kelvin Cortez-Harvey connected on 5-of-5 from the floor in scoring 10 points while Andrew O' Neill scored 9 points with a 3-pointer.
St. Edward (1-0) was equally impressive at the defensive end, forcing 13 Lion turnovers as Harvest misfired on all 6 shots it took during the first 8 minutes.
"We wanted to come out with great intensity at both ends of the court," said Cortez-Harvey. "We are a team-oriented team which hustles the whole game. It was a good way to start the season."
Sean Phelan scored 2 baskets to start the second quarter for the Green Wave to complete a 31-0 run to start the game.
Harvest's first points came on 2 free throws by Brett Cramer with 5:56 left in the second quarter. The Lions tallied their first basket of the game with 4:30 left in the half on a 12-footer from Dylan Lockwood to make the score 33-4.
The Green Wave's biggest lead of the game was 57-9 on a basket by Jake French with 1:33 left in the third quarter.
Cortez-Harvey and O'Neill paced the winners with 15 points each. Phelan tallied 12 while French scored 10 off the bench.
Jack Nohava led Harvest with 8 points, 6 in the Lions' 24 point fourth-quarter outburst, while Cramer scored 7.
"I am the fifth coach in five years at Harvest and we are trying to establish a winning environment," said Harvest coach Lafayette Bell. "This game was a win-win situation because we got to find out how we matched up against a very good program."