Crusaders jump on Central Lee early

FORT MADISON - Holy Trinity’s offense took the air out of Tuesday’s 64-38 win over Central Lee in the opening minutes.

The Crusaders’ defense did its own extinguishing.

Holy Trinity (14-4 overall, 10-3 SEI Superconference South Division) won its sixth consecutive game by taking the Hawks (8-8, 6-6) out of the game right away. The Crusaders opened the game with a 19-2 run and were up 33-6 with 5:09 left in the first half.

“We’ve been getting out to some slow starts,” Holy Trinity coach John Hellige said. “Tonight, we just decided to come out and be aggressive from the start. Play hard, get ahead, and stay ahead.”

“They’re just good shooters,” Central Lee coach Kritter Hayes said. “They got off to a hot start and we weren’t fighting through screens. We weren’t communicating on defense at all, and we got outhustled on both ends. We weren’t moving the ball offensively, we weren’t running our stuff at all. We were settling for things.”

Holy Trinity’s defense held the Hawks to just two field goals over the first 12:05 of the game.

“I think our press slowed down their tempo and allowed us to get into good half-court defense and disrupt their offense,” Hellige said.

Holy Trinity has held opponents to just an average of 39.5 points in its current winning streak. That, Hellige said, comes back to the way his team prepares for games, and then how the preparation shows up on the court.

“Our guys are really into statistics, analytics,” he said. “They study film, they diagram a lot of the plays our opponents run.”

That leads to on-court communication.

“For me, it’s just talking, moving our feet,” Hellige said. “The communication is better — you can hear the kids talking. They’re doing the communication. You watch a lot of high school games, boys and girls, and the coaches are yelling out instruction. I’m not doing that much anymore. They’re calling out the offense, they’re calling out the defense, and I’m sitting there watching a little bit. It’s great to have veteran players who are doing that.”

Hayes said his team’s lack of communication led to early breakdowns.

“They were setting great screens on us,” he said. “We weren’t communicating, talking through screens, helping each other defensively. We’ve got to get back to the basics when it comes to our defense. And it seems when we don’t defend well, we have offensive droughts, and that hurts us big time. When we have to fight from behind, it’s a struggle.”

Holy Trinity forced a running clock by taking a 60-24 lead with 1:12 left in the third quarter before Central Lee closed the game with a 14-4 run.

“They’re not going to ever quit,” Hayes said of his players. “They’re trying hard. HTC is just very skilled. They play off each other better than we are right now. They just play really well, and I was impressed with them. It’s something we’re trying to model after, to be honest with you.”

Luke Hellige led Holy Trinity with 25 points. Layne Rung and Conner Gehling each had 11.

Owen Swan led Central Lee with 11 points. Will Hayes had nine points.

Gehling was honored after the game for becoming Holy Trinity’s all-time leading shot blocker with 117. Adam Sobczak was honored for becoming the program’s all-time leader in assists with 346.