Springfield closes in on another crown

January 24, 2015 at 12:08a.m.

New Middletown

A resounding 78-56 home victory over Lisbon on Friday was a major proving point for the Springfield High boys basketball team.

As it has for the last three basketball seasons, the road to the Inter Tri-County League Tier One championship still runs through Springfield.

The Tigers (11-0, 9-0) raced out to a 9-0 first-quarter lead and broke the game open before halftime in handing second-place Lisbon (9-4, 7-2) their second defeat between the two. In December, Springfield defeated Lisbon, 73-66.

Jordan Peterson and Graham Mincher each scored 25 points and a strong defensive effort helped the Tigers distance themselves from the Blue Devils in the run to a fourth consecutive title.

“It’s huge and it’s always great to go up two games like that, especially your rival,” said Peterson, one of seven Springfield seniors. “It’s a huge confidence booster heading into the tournament that maybe we can [potentially] beat them for a third time and hopefully go pretty far in the tournament this year.”

Peterson scored 11 points in a dominant second quarter for Springfield. Mark Schuler’s post presence opened up the lane for Peterson and Mincher to drive to the basket or knock down easy jump shots.

Brandon Chamberlain, meanwhile, was able to find open jump shots from the outside on his way to four 3-pointers for the game.

Ahead 14-11 at the outset of the second, the Tigers’ offense was in constant rhythm and their defense limited Lisbon to nine points. Peterson capped a 19-7 run when he finished a fast-break layup started by a Chamberlain steal on the defensive end.

The run of play continued Springfield’s way after halftime as the Tigers’ balanced attack took over, methodically increasing the lead complemented by a collected defensive performance.

“Being able to execute like that and being so unselfish and moving the ball like that gave us points,” Peterson said. “It was good teamwork.”

Tigers coach Eric Fender emphasized execution all week in practice, knowing Lisbon had seen the Tigers enough to know what they do best.

“We know that they’ve scouted us well, so they know all our plays and we can hear them yelling them out,” Peterson said. “We just focused on setting good screens, good ball movement and executing our plays.

“We have some people that can score.” Mincher made eight fourth quarter free throws and the Tigers made 22 of 28 as a team.

Josh Liberati paced Lisbon with 23 points (18 coming in the second half), but his performance was not enough.

“We got off to a slow start offensively,” Lisbon coach Chris Huckshold said. “Defensively we held them to about seven points in the first four minutes and we had some good lucks, but we didn’t score.”