Champion streaks past LaBrae in Div. III tournament play, 75-67
The Flashes used a 20-0 second quarter run to topple the Vikings.
By DOUG CHAPIN
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
HOWLAND — A 20-0 scoring streak in the second quarter propelled Champion High to a 75-67 victory Wednesday night over LaBrae in a first-round game of the Division III boys sectional basketball tournament at Howland High.
The third-seeded Golden Flashes will play Maplewood Saturday at 8 p.m. in a sectional final.
Champion (16-5) went from a 20-11 deficit with 6:18 left in the second period to a 31-20 lead at the 0:40 mark. LaBrae’s Mike Morris, who led all scorers with 26 points, ended the run with 27 seconds remaining, sinking one of his six 3-point field goals in the game. But Champion’s Derek Sumner countered with a 3-pointer just before the buzzer for a 34-23 halftime lead.
LaBrae (7-14) had opened its lead mostly because of an 11-point first quarter from Morris, and despite losing forward Bryan Watkins to injury early in the contest.
“It hurt us to lose Watkins a minute into the game,” LaBrae coach Chad Kiser said. “We are an extremely young team and he is one of our two veteran players, along with [Cameron] Truss. We look to them for all of our leadership.
“We had a nice start, had a nine-point lead, then they kind of turned the pressure up on us. We’re not real deep anyway, and we had one guy out, a starter and a leader, and we kind of wore down in that second quarter and made some errors and some bad passes.”
Champion coach Dan Bubon said the Flashes had trouble with Truss, the Vikings’ primary ball handler.
“Truss is a heck of an athlete and we had a hard time staying in front of him,” Bubon said. “Some of it was mental lapses on what we were trying to do and some of it was him being a heck of an athlete. He was able to hurt us and then Morris was hitting shots from everywhere. Watkins got hurt early, or else we could have been in real trouble, he’s their third gun and he hardly played. It was real unfortunate for them, but those other two guys really stepped up.”
Champion’s largest lead of the night was 40-26 with 5:45 remaining in the third period. But the Vikings put together their own 11-point run to close to within 40-37 halfway through the quarter. However, Joe Cvengros, who led Champion with 22 points, nailed a 3-pointer to end the LaBrae streak and the Flashes led 51-44 at the end of the period.
“Our pressure worked well in the second quarter and maybe I shouldn’t have got out of it, but we’re tired and we’re sick,” Bubon said. “Markel Vaughn gave one of the greatest efforts I’ve seen, and I didn’t think he was going to play today. He has a severe case of the flu and I didn’t know what he could give us. It was a really, really gutty performance on his part. He might not get out of bed for a day.”
Vaughn added 13 points and 10 assists, Kris Wildman had 11 points and eight rebounds and Sean Sumner added eight points and nine rebounds.
LaBrae closed within three points again in the final quarter, 60-57 with 3:01 to play. The Vikings were hurt by their free throw shooting, at one point splitting six consecutive pairs of charity tosses in the final quarter. LaBrae was 17-for-37 (46 percent) from the line for the game.
Steve Woodyard compiled 19 points and 11 rebounds for LaBrae, and Truss scored 15 points.