Boys basketball: Polo leans on second-quarter surge, second-half defense to top Amboy

POLO – The Polo boys basketball team built a 15-point halftime lead and cruised to a 36-18 victory over the visiting Clippers on Wednesday night at Polo Community High School.

From the first quarter, the Marcos were in control. Brock Soltow snagged a pair of offensive rebounds to create a four-point swing early – one followed by a putback and another followed by an assist. Then Carson Jones drilled a right-wing 3 with two minutes left to take an 11-5 lead. That was the score at the end of the period.

In the second quarter, Polo went on a 12-3 run. Tyler Merdian took a defender off the dribble from the high post and knocked down a right-handed floater to make it a 13-5 game less than a minute in. Jones followed with consecutive 3s, the second of which came from the left wing with 4:16 to play and increased the lead to 19-8.

“Credit to Carson Jones, who came in and gave us three 3-pointers. That helped take the lid off,” Polo coach Matt Messer said. “And then it just opens things up. Then Brock Soltow and Tyler Merdian can get in the lane and create.”

Soltow poked the ball loose and went coast-to-coast for a layup, finishing over the top of a defender for a 21-8 lead with 2:15 to go, and Merdian picked up a loose ball off a deflected inbound pass and laid it in to cap the first-half scoring at 23-8 with about 17 seconds on the clock.

“[The 12-3 run] was huge. It gave us separation. Both teams were playing good defense, and we needed to get a breakthrough,” Messer said. “Then we were able to kind of hold them at bay. Second half was pretty even, but we built that nice cushion.”

Added Jones: “We had a good lead, but it was pretty important, just because we wanted to not give them a chance to come back into the game. So the 12-3 run really set us up for success toward the end of the game.”

Fast-break scoring and rebounding were big parts of Polo’s first-half success. The Marcos snagged 12 rebounds in the first half – including six on the offensive glass – and they nabbed six steals.

“I thought we set the tone right away. I think we had a steal right on the first possession. I think Brock Soltow got a steal and went in for a layup,” Messer said. “It just makes it so much easier, because it opens up the floor. When teams can set their defense, then its harder to get the shots you want than when teams are in rotation, because they have to scramble to get back.”

In the third quarter, both teams struggled to score, but the Marcos were able to widen their lead with a 5-2 scoring advantage. Kahlil Sankey scored four of their five points in the period on back-to-back layups in the final two minutes, building the lead to 28-8. Polo led 28-10 after three quarters.

By keeping their energy level up on defense throughout the second half, the Marcos were able to stay in control of the game.

“That’s something that we talked about the last couple of days. We had a really bad first half against Milledgeville the other night, and we played with such urgency, especially on the defensive end,” Messer said. “We talked about, we have to do that for four quarters. We did a great job of keeping up our defensive energy, like in the third quarter, nobody’s scoring, but we were holding our end. And we’re slowly becoming a team that’s built on defense first.”

“The offense wasn’t clicking,” Merdian said. “We scored five points in the third quarter, so to hold them to two in the quarter just kept us in the game.”

In the fourth quarter, the Marcos dragged out their possessions and milked the clock. Cooper Blake went 2-for-2 from the free-throw line to make it a 30-10 game with 4:08 remaining. With 20 seconds left, Avery Grenoble hit a right-handed hook, ending the game at 36-18.

Amboy coach Brad Dunlap said three main factors were to blame for his team’s defeat.

“For whatever reason, we didn’t come ready to play in [the second quarter]. I probably didn’t do so good a job and didn’t take timeouts. I thought we could play through it,” Dunlap said. “We didn’t really shoot the ball well tonight at all. Gave them a lot of easy transition baskets, which really hurt us. And then second-shot opportunities. They’re big and physical and kind of shoved us under, so we just gotta get better at screening out and really taking good shots and knocking some down.”

Jones and Merdian paced Polo with nine points each, Soltow tallied six points, five rebounds and four steals, and Sankey added four points, seven rebounds and two blocks.

Brennan Blaine scored 12 points to lead Amboy.