John Bohnenkamp for Pen City Current Sports
FORT MADISON - Holy Trinity’s boys basketball team had, maybe, too good of a first half in Friday’s 65-33 win over Van Buren.
And the Crusaders’ ragged play in the second half, coach John Hellige said, was a good lesson.
Holy Trinity (5-2 overall, 4-2 SEI Superconference South Division) led 51-5 at halftime, then, with the clock running because of the IHSAA’s 35-point mercy rule, was outscored 14-2 in the third quarter and 14-12 in the fourth quarter.
“It’s tough when that clock gets running,” Hellige said. “It changes your whole psyche. You kind of feel the game slipping away and you press a little bit, maybe make a pass that’s ill-advised or force something up or take a defensive possession off so you can get a fast break going.
“It comes down to mental toughness. In the second half, we just lost our edge.”
“We really should have probably stayed up,” said sophomore Layne Rung. “All that momentum we had going into the second half kind of fell because we were up so much.”
The second half was a complete reverse from what the Crusaders did in the first two quarters. They led 23-1 at the end of the first quarter, and scored 18 consecutive points over the final 3:20 of the second quarter.
“We were as good as we could be in the first half, and probably as bad as we could be in the second half,” Hellige said. “But at the end of the day, we won.”
It was only the second home game of the season for the Crusaders, and it showed how much they liked their comfort zone.
“We practice here all of the time, and I think our shooting is better here,” Rung said.
Rung, who had 15 points, had 13 in the first quarter, hitting three 3-pointers.
“This whole year, I’ve been really confident in my shooting,” he said.
Luke Hellige led the Crusaders with 22 points. Conner Gehling added 18.
“We’ve got a lot of weapons on this team,” John Hellige said. “I think a lot of people look at our stats and think that it’s a one-man show. But we’ve got a lot of weapons, a lot of go-to guys. The more we get those guys involved, the stronger we’re going to be down the stretch.”
The Crusaders play host to North Division leader Winfield-Mount Union on Saturday, but Hellige didn’t think his team was looking ahead.
“I think it came down to mental toughness,” he said. “What we talked about was being in the moment. Even though we’re up by 45 (points), let’s keep the guy in front of us, let’s get a good box-out, let’s get a good close-out, let’s make a solid pass, set screens, do all of the little things, and carry that mental toughness.”
Izaak Loeffler led Van Buren with 17 points.
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