Boys Basketball: Burlington Central turns scores off turnovers into big win at Kaneland

MAPLE PARK – Statistics can certainty be misleading.

In the sport of basketball, however, the centrality of points off turnovers cannot be discounted.

Kaneland discovered that first hand Saturday afternoon at the hands of an ever-opportunistic Burlington Central boys squad in Maple Park.

Central never trailed its longtime non-conference rival in turning thievery in the open court into simple scores in systematically expanding its early advantage into a decisive 60-33 victory.

“We have a really stout defense with our ball pressure,” Central coach Brett Porto said after the Rockets eased to their ninth win against a lone defeat. “That got us going early on, for sure. We can really get up and guard.”

“They got so many easy baskets to build up their lead,” Kaneland coach Ernie Colombe confirmed. “It kind of negated what we were doing in the halfcourt.”

After trading field goals twice for the only ties of the game, the remainder of the first half belonged to Central.

Offensive issues would only worsen for Kaneland (3-5) after the intermission. Yet the Knights still controlled their own destiny as the first half came to a close.

The Rockets’ Nick Carpenter had a putback to give Central a far-from-luxurious 24-15 lead at the break.

But when the Knights opened the third quarter by missing seven consecutive shots from the field, the Rockets seized their cue.

Central unleashed a tsunami of multiple options as four players ultimately finished in double figures.

With his 3-point conversion to complete a nine-point unanswered run to start the third quarter, the Rockets’ Zac Schmidt was the fourth different player to score for Central in the sequence.

Gavin Sarvis led the Rockets’ attack with 13 points, Andrew Scharnowski finished with 12, while Carpenter and Schmidt were in tight proximity with 11 and 10, respectively.

“We had to show that we could dominate from inside and outside of our conference,” Scharnowski said. “It’s a huge help when we have teammates like Gavin Sarvis, Zac Schmidt and Carson (Seyller) who are running the floor and always putting their best out.”

When the Knights’ Troyer Carlson followed his first bucket of the game with a 3-point play, it was the only time in the middle two quarters Kaneland scored from the field on consecutive possessions.

As a result, the Rockets threatened a running clock in the fourth following their 22-point third-quarter eruption.

Central sophomore reserve Matthew Lemon typified the Rockets’ team concept with assists on back-to-back basketball equivalents of golf gimmes late in the fourth quarter.

“We game-planned hard,” Central reserve Nolan Milas said. “We have been playing (Kaneland) ever since we were little.”

David Kolev had six points to pace Kaneland.

“We have nine games and four practices left, so there hasn’t been a lot of time to fix things,” Colombe said.