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Burlington Central blows out Richmond-Burton

Longtime rivals Burlington Central and Richmond-Burton have played dozens of down-to-the-wire boys basketball thrillers through the years.

Thursday's Kishwaukee River Conference season opener in Richmond was not one of them.

Central dominated from start to finish in a 78-37 victory.

Ten players cracked the scoring column for Burlington, led by Patrick Mayfield, who continued his torrid scoring pace. The 6-foot-5 senior, who entered with a 29.9 point-per-game scoring average, finished with 29 points. He scored 15 in the first quarter en route to 21 first-half points and added 8 in the third quarter before coach Brett Porto subbed him out with three minutes left in the period.

Mayfield, who has drawn primarily Division III interest to this point, shot 9 of 14 from the field and 3 of 4 from 3-point range. He grabbed 7 rebounds, made 4 steals and made it all look too easy.

"Pat is just a really special player," Porto said. "He's a talented scorer, he keeps coming along defensively and he's developing as a leader. He makes us go, that's for sure."

Mayfield's 29 points bring him within 19 of 1,000 for his career. He should reach the milestone when the Rockets play next against Kaneland at the Plano Christmas Classic on Dec. 26.

"We had a good game," Mayfield said. "Everything was working. We were executing plays and we were defending really well. We haven't defended well because we're still learning the defense, but we executed on defense really well."

Central led 39-23 at halftime and 62-28 after three quarters. The Rockets punctuated the easy win by holding Richmond-Burton (2-7, 0-1) to 5 third-quarter points.

Mayfield had plenty of help. Senior guard Braden Seyller sank a pair of 3-pointers as part of a 10-point performance, freshman Zac Schmidt contributed a 3-pointer and 8 rebounds and senior guard Logan Andersen finished with 7 points and 3 assists.

Central buried nine 3-pointers.

"It was a lot of fun," Seyller said. "Getting it going on offense right away helped us, getting Pat going right away. Whenever he's going, we're all going. We all started hitting shots and our defense was leading to offense."

Senior forward Jeff Jankowski Jr scored 20 points to lead Richmond-Burton.

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