Wednesday, December 19, 2007

It?s Carey, easily, in first Northside boys? showdown

Panthers race past Cutthroats 63-34


By JEFF CORDES
Express Staff Writer

It's going to be a season-long donnybrook in the Northside Conference between three teams that have started the 2007-08 boys' basketball season with a combined 22-1 record—Richfield, Carey and The Community School of Sun Valley.

You never know when two highly regarded teams get together. One team might get hot, the other team might not, and whichever team plays the better defense usually wins.

The first of many showdowns happened Friday night at The Fish Tank in Sun Valley and it wasn't much of a donnybrook at all. Unbeaten Carey (7-0, 3-0 league) put three players in double figures and hammered the Cutthroats 63-34.

Ball hawking and trapping throughout, Carey peaked its lead at 30 points midway through the fourth when 5-7 senior Blake Whitby nailed the second of his two 3-pointers. The officials invoked the 30-point mercy rule (running clock) for the rest of the 32-minute high school game.

Defended primarily by Carey's 6-3 senior leader D.J. Simpson, Community School 6-6 senior post Mac Whittington (22.3 ppg) got his points but not as many as usual. Whittington (13 rebounds) scored 18, the same as Simpson, but Carey's supporting cast was deeper.

"We shot the ball well and that helps everything else fall into place," said Carey coach Dick Simpson about his team's 40% floor shooting. "I felt we stepped up and left everything on the court. It was a good start to a tough stretch for us, with three games this week."

Mike Wade, Community School coach, agreed with Simpson's assessment of the shooting. He said, "We shot a low percentage (25%), especially in tight to the basket, and they shot the ball well from everywhere on the floor."

Carey's D.J. Simpson (18 points, 7 rebounds, 5 steals, 5 assists) was everywhere. And his younger sophomore brother Dillon Simpson took a cue.

Dillon (17 points, 4 boards, 4 steals, 3 assists) enjoyed his best varsity game and senior Kade Peterson (10 points, 3 rebounds, 3 steals, 3 assists) was a thorn in the Cutthroat side.

Scrappy defense fueled Carey's charge and, of course, everything in the Panther game plan revolved around Whittington, one of the best post players in the 1A ranks.

Coach Simpson said, "I figured there were two ways to look at it. We could try to stop him (Whittington) and let the others score. Or we could try to contain him and make it as hard as we could for him to score—and stop everybody else and limit what they got. We decided to double him wherever we could. We did well limiting their second shots."

Another key was Carey's perimeter defense that made entry passes a challenge for the Cutthroat offense.

Wade said, "Their press on the perimeter made it hard for us to get the ball into our post. We wanted to get it the court early before they could double-team Mac, but they're so much quicker than we are at every spot. We did everything we could, but Carey is just a good defensive basketball team."

Pressure made the Cutthroats do everything a little too quickly.

They made eight turnovers in the first quarter and Carey led 13-6 at the break. Dillon Simpson scored 7 points and Peterson 6 in Carey's 22-11 second-quarter surge. The visitors led 35-17 at half, Whittington scoring 14 of his team's 17 points with Spencer Harris hitting a 3-pointer for the rest.

The Panthers got a little sloppy handling the ball in the second half but the cold-shooting Cutthroats couldn't capitalize and D.J. Simpson (8 points in the period) really started getting the best of his match-up with Whittington. Carey out-rebounded the Cutthroats 14-7 in the third period and 35-30 for the entire game.

Other Carey contributors were Tyler Parke (5 points, 8 rebounds), Whitby (6 points, 4 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 assists), Trevor Peck (5 points, 6 boards, 4 assists, 2 steals) and Tyler Wilde (2 points).

Cutthroats were Ian Ingram (8 points, 4 rebounds, 2 steals, 3 assists), Max Harris (5 points, 2 steals), Spencer Harris (4 points, 3 assists), Travis Stone (3 rebounds, 2 assists) and Lucas Vorsteveld (2 boards, 3 steals, 3 assists).

Thursday, Carey (46% shooting) captured its first Northside victory 50-10 over Camas County, at Carey. Trevor Peck (10 points), Whitby (8), Parke (6 points, 5 rebounds), Scott Ellsworth (6 points), Peterson (6), Jared Cenarrusa (5) and Wilde (4) led the attack. Dillon Simpson (3 points, 6 rebounds) led the Panthers in rebounding.

Carey added another league win Monday 58-32 at home over Bliss. Peck (12 points) and Heith Adamson (12) led the Panthers to an easy victory.

Having played at Dietrich (2-6, 1-3) Tuesday, Carey completes a tough stretch of three pre-holiday games in three days with a non-conference tussle against the Valley Vikings in Hazelton tonight, Wednesday.

Valley (6-1), ranked #3 in Idaho 2A boys' polls, saw its season-opening six-game winning streak come to a crashing end Saturday night with a narrow 50-46 loss to Wendell in the championship game of the Murtaugh tournament. Valley traveled to Filer Tuesday night.

The Community School (6-1, 2-1 league) resumes action after the holiday with Northside road games at Bliss Jan. 4, at Camas County Jan. 5 and at Shoshone Jan. 8 before hosting 1A #1-ranked Richfield (8-0, 3-0 league) Thursday, Jan. 10 in Sun Valley. Richfield averages 66.0 ppg.

In other 1A news, the Sho-Ban Chiefs (4-1) outscored Leadore 100-38 last week as Magic Smith (32 points) had a big night for Sho-Ban.




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