Given the fact Center Grove and Zionsville haven’t met in boys basketball this century, there is no rivalry of which to speak.
Tuesday night’s game could make for a nice start.
The host Trojans received 13-point performances from juniors Tayven Jackson and Tyler Cerny to defeat the Eagles, 49-33, breaking a two-game losing streak and improving to 10-5 on the season.
Center Grove scored the game’s first six points and never looked back.
“We talked about that all week. The last four or five games, we’ve gotten off to bad starts, so I challenged the starters, and I thought they responded really well tonight,” said Trojans coach Zach Hahn after chalking up his 99th career victory — all of those at Center Grove.
“The problem hasn’t been our defense. We’ve been guarding. But when we have unforced turnovers or when we take quick shots early on … I thought this was our best offensive game plan. I just thought we executed on the offensive side of things really, really well. We were patient. We were disciplined, and we took what the defense gave us.”
Zionsville, which dropped to 12-6 despite the 14 points and 10 rebounds of sophomore wing Logan Imes, fell behind by as many as 11 points in the second quarter but closed to within five, 33-28, midway through the third.
It was at that point that senior guard Landin Hacker took control for the Trojans, scoring a layup off a steal, powering inside for two points and feeding Cerny for a baseline layup to push the lead back to 11. Hacker finished with eight points, with senior post Ethan Jones scoring 10. Senior forward Charlie Bemis didn’t score but led Center Grove in rebounds with seven.
A reverse layup by Jackson off a nice feed from Hacker with 2.9 seconds left before halftime gave the Trojans a 29-19 lead.
Center Grove led early, 16-5, after Cerny drilled a triple at 6:09 of the second quarter. Zionsville closed to within 22-19 late, but another Cerny trey, followed by baskets from Shane Bennett and Jackson, pushed the spread back to double digits.
Zionsville made 13 of 39 field goal attempts (33%) compared to Center Grove’s 17 of 35 (49%). The Trojans held a slim 22-20 rebounding advantage.
First-year Eagles coach J.R. Howell, a former Carmel assistant, was familiar with Center Grove and knew the Trojans’ defense would be a challenge.
“We kind of came out flat in the beginning offensively, and, obviously (Center Grove) got pretty hot there hitting some 3s,” Howell said. “We tried to make some adjustments, but unfortunately we got ourselves in too big of a hole early. We battled back, but not quite enough.
“(Center Grove) plays extremely hard. Every time they caught it, they’re a threat to catch and shoot or just to drive it. That’s what they did, especially that first half. A game like this is good for us to play because they’ve played a very tough schedule, and it puts us in a good spot to understand what that next level for us to get to is.”
The Trojans are back in action Friday night when they travel to play at Lawrence Central in a Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference matchup.
