Staying perfect: Terra Ceia decimates Lawrence

Published 6:47 pm Wednesday, December 9, 2015

MICHAEL PRUNKA | DAILY NEWS UNSTOPPABLE: Chase Furlough drives through the lane and right to the hoop for a layup in Terra Ceia’s dominant win on Tuesday. He led the team with 25 points to help extend the Knights’ perfect start.

MICHAEL PRUNKA | DAILY NEWS
UNSTOPPABLE: Chase Furlough drives through the lane and right to the hoop for a layup in Terra Ceia’s dominant win on Tuesday. He led the team with 25 points to help extend the Knights’ perfect start.

PANTEGO — Terra Ceia didn’t do anything out of the ordinary Tuesday night in its domination of Lawrence Academy. The Knights handled their conference foe, 96-51, to improve their perfect start to 11-0.

The visiting Warriors were outmatched from the onset. Terra Ceia set the tone early on by forcing turnovers on the defensive end and quickly breaking out into transition. The breakneck pace proved lethal as it shutdown Lawrence and set up numerous easy baskets.

What it resulted in was a stunning 31-0 lead at the end of the first quarter. They controlled the paint and earned 22 of those 31 points right at the rim. As if the quick, fluid movement wasn’t enough, Tyler Hendrix and Messiah Barnes spread the court more with a pair of back-to-back three pointers early in the period.

“We’ve put in a new press that we use,” said head coach Roger Klaassen. “It’s about forcing them to make bad decisions and us reading what they’re doing and jumping the passing lanes. It’s getting great opportunities.”

Lawrence made some adjustments and was able to get its offense going after a dismal first quarter, but couldn’t do enough defensively to slow the Knights down. They continued to take what they wanted at the rim and produced a 53-21 halftime lead.

“With our fast break, when we get the ball, we’re going to go,” Klaassen said. “We look for the fastest way to get down the court.”

Five players scored in double digits for Terra Ceia. Chase Furlough led the charge with 25 points. He was able to use his size and strength in the paint. He drew five shooting fouls and made nine of his 10 shots from the free-throw line. He earned two of those trips to the charity stripe by way of and-one layups.

Hendrix added 18 points. He and Furlough each hauled in 13 rebounds to have a double-double performance. Barnes also scored 18. Quentin Van Essendelft added 13 and Austin Roscoe had 10 to round out the team’s top scorers. Hendrix and Van Essendelft dished out seven assists apiece, too.

Terra Ceia’s team chemistry was on full display coming out of the halftime break. The team sat back on its dominant lead. Hendrix and Barnes were able to connect on a handful of alley-oop layups that brought the crowd to its feet.

“This has been a work in progress for many years,” Klaassen said. “These guys have been playing together since sixth grade. You’re just seeing the fruits of a lot of hard work. They just believe in each other. They don’t care who scores. They play as a team.”

Defensively, the Knights left the visiting Warriors confused many times and forced plenty of errors. They were able to pressure the ball with their press. They were also able to implement different variations of their zone defense to trap whoever had the ball to create turnovers. The team notched 15 steals in the game.

“We just look at the matchups before the game and look at what we have to do to take away their offense,” Klaassen said. “If they start figuring something out, we’ll just switch something up and give them a different look and then go back to it. We try to keep everything off balance. We try not to settle on one thing.”

It worked, too. Lawrence didn’t score a single point in the first quarter, but was able to come out and score 49 between the second and third. Terra Ceia’s adjustments — along with the running clock they got after going up by 40 points — held Lawrence to just 16 in the final eight minutes.

Terra Ceia will travel to Bear Grass on Thursday for its next outing. The Knights won 89-55 when the two last met on Dec. 3. Hendrix led the way with 19 points. They will hope for a better shooting performance after going 27-of-82 (33 percent) from the floor last time.