Unbeaten and ranked fourth in Class A, Edinburgh’s boys basketball team faced its first significant test of the season on Wednesday night, hosting No. 7 Indianapolis Lutheran in the championship game of its annual holiday tournament.
Consider that test passed in impressive fashion.
Two teams with lofty postseason aspirations played with tournament intensity, feeding off of a spirited near-capacity crowd — one that grew ever livelier as Caleb Dewey and Travis Jones spearheaded a fourth-quarter flurry to lead the unbeaten Lancers to a 60-48 triumph.
Dewey topped all scorers with 28 points, while Jones had nine of his 16 points in the final period.
“We haven’t seen a team quite like them yet,” Lancers coach Keith Witty said. “They’re really good; they’re quick and they’re explosive, and I think it took us a while to really settle in and make that adjustment on the kind of pressure that they were going to bring. … We want to play quick, up and down, but this was a game where we needed to be a little bit slower and make them have to guard us some.”
Edinburgh (10-0) never led until Jones fed Travis Vidal under the basket to make it 40-39 with 6:33 to go in the game. Jones followed with a basket of his own, and the Lancers continued to extend the margin throughout the fourth period thanks largely to its free-throw shooting prowess — they hit 17 of 21 from the line, making 10 in the last quarter alone — and a defense that forced 23 Lutheran turnovers.
Witty credited a seldom-used zone defense for helping disrupt the Saints.
“We knew they had a lot of guys that were going to drive and a lot of guys that want to get to the bucket,” he said. “We went zone out there, and it just made it difficult on them.”
After a tight first few minutes that saw the two sides feel each other out a bit, the Saints were able to get out in transition on back-to-back trips, with back-to-back layups giving the visitors a 12-4 lead. Edinburgh responded with a Dewey layup and a Jarrett Turner 3-pointer to get within three, but Lutheran closed with a flurry, a Montasi Clay 3 sparking what became a seven-point run and a 19-9 advantage.
Jones and Braylon Bryant hit shots early in the second quarter that helped the Lancers chop the margin to 21-17. The Saints responded with six straight points to briefly rebuild their 10-point cushion before Edinburgh put together a 6-0 run of its own, keyed by an and-one from Dewey with 1:31 on the clock.
“We knew they were going to be aggressive,” Dewey said. “That’s just how they play, and they did rattle us; I think we had like 10 turnovers in the first half. But halftime, we just settled down … and defensively, we flipped it around and we were getting the steals.”
The Lancers kept that momentum going into the third quarter, scoring on a lob to Jones and a tough drive by Dewey to get within a basket at 29-27. Following a Lutheran offensive foul, Dewey got behind the defense and hauled in a long outlet pass, finishing at the rim to tie the game for the first time with 5:40 left in the period.
Consecutive layups by Micah Mackay put the Saints back in front by four, but Edinburgh punched back at the end of what became an increasingly physical quarter, with makes from Dewey and Jarrett Turner evening the score up at 38-38 going into the final eight minutes.
Though the Lancers have bigger goals in mind than just winning this tournament, hoisting this trophy should help provide the team with more fuel to get where they hope to go come March.
“We knew it was going to be a big test, and luckily we were able to come out on top,” Dewey said. “It gives us the confidence that we definitely need to keep going and keep playing how we play.”
