By MATT
WENZEL
Manistee News Advocate Sports Editor
Published: Wednesday, January 12, 2011
ONEKAMA — The outside shots just hadn’t
been falling for Manistee Catholic Central this season.
Especially for senior guard Nick Kolanowski.
But after already hitting a trio of 3-pointers in the first quarter,
Kolanowski’s triple try from the corner late in the first half got a
couple bounces while touching almost every inch of the rim before
dropping. In his best impression of Michael Jordan in the 1992 NBA
Finals, Kolanowski lifted both arms in a shrug as he headed back up
the court."I was pretty much
like, 'wow,' they're going in," Kolanowski said. "Not much to say
about that. That was just luck." Luck or not, for the first time
this season the outside shots dropped for MCC as they hit eight
3-pointers in a 79-55 WMD win against Onekama.
“Usually when teams play a zone like that,
we can get the outside looks,” Kolanowski said. “When they’re going in,
they’re nice.”
However, the Sabers (4-3 2-3 WMD) weren’t hell-bent on living from
outside the arc.
“We didn’t come in with the idea that we’d pump it up from the 3-point
line,” said MCC coach Dale Edmondson Jr. “We wanted to get it inside to
our bread and butter and kick it out and if that’s what we got, that’s
what we got.”
MCC senior Nick Doyle had 19 points to go with eight rebounds, five
assists and four steals while Zack Bialik scored 19 off the bench.
Kolanowski hit five 3-pointers and finished with a season-high 17 points
to go with six steals, five rebounds and five assists.
“Nick has been struggling with his shot and tonight everything seemed to
go right,” Edmondson said. “He’s been waiting for it but he’s been real
patient.” |
Onekama junior Adrian Norman had 24
points to lead all scorers while Skyler Kimpel chipped in 11 for the
Portagers (1-4, 1-4 WMD) Utilizing
outside shooting and a strong transition game that took advantage of 13
first-quarter turnovers by Onekama, MCC closed the first on a 19-2 run
for a 26-7 lead.
“Their quickness hurt us,” said Onekama coach Jim Hunter. “They got some
easy buckets just pushing the ball up the floor, which we like to think
we can do. On the zone, they moved the ball well. ... We were just
a step slow all the way around, whether it was defending the break or
when we tried to press them, they went through it like a hot knife
through butter.”
MCC scored the final eight points of the second quarter as Doyle hit a
triple with 3 seconds left for a 44-19 lead at halftime. In the locker
room, Hunter implored his team to forget about the score and play the
second half like a new game. However, he acknowledged that can be tough
to do trailing by 25 points.
“You get very much out of your offense,” he said. “What we talked about
at halftime was five individuals versus one team. It’s got to be one
team out there. Some of it is selfishness, some of it is kids trying to
put the team on their shoulders and ‘I’ll do it, I’ll be Superman.’ But
that’s not how you do it in this game.”
Although the Portagers generated more offense in the second half, they
were never able to close the gap as MCC cruised down the stretch.
“I thought we played better in the second half,” Hunter said. “I asked
the kids to forget the score and just go play and I thought they did a
good job of that.”
The Onekama junior varsity team beat MCC 36-35. Quinn Matthews led the
Portagers with 16 points while Joe Eno scored 12. |
