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Stall for naught: Leopards bully Bulldogs, take control of 13-4A race
BY Matt Welch, mwelch@starlocalnews.com
MCKINNEY -- Although there are still six games left in the regular season, the Lovejoy boys basketball team assumed control of the District 13-4A Championship race Tuesday night.
The Leopards found themselves in that envious position following a 42-25 win at McKinney North that was plenty significant and unique in its own right.
"This was a huge game for us," said Kyle Herrema, Lovejoy head coach. "It gives us a two-game lead in the standings and we've still got a long way to go but this one gives us a cushion."
The bucket was significant in that it countered a clock-killing strategy by the Bulldogs (14-8, 6-2) that saw the home team at times bleed off two minutes before attempting to get to the basket.
While the conservative approach drew the ire of the Lovejoy faithful, it kept the ball out of the Leopards' hands.
"Sometimes you worry about the kids gambling and getting impatient," Herrema said, "but our kids played with a lot of composure. It's hard to play that way and it's really hard to take care of the ball for two-and-a-half minutes, so you saw that they'd make a turnover and we really capitalized on the other end."
Such was the case late in the first quarter when senior Chris Ford poked the ball loose to set up Eckard's basket.
"Every game that we go into, it's my job to come up with a game plan that gives our team the best chance to win," said Darryll Craft, North head coach. "[Lovejoy] is big and when we tried to run our normal offense, we still couldn't get into the paint so my thought was that we could spread them out and create some gaps to penetrate.
"I thought if we played them straight up, they were too big and physical for us."
The Bulldogs kept with the strategy into the second quarter, only to have it backfire in the form of a 10-0 Lovejoy run through the first four-and-a-half minutes of the frame.
Senior Jake Flaggert, who led Lovejoy with 15 points, supplied the ammunition by knocking down a pair of 3-pointers and throwing down a baseline alley oop during the run that left the Bulldogs backpedaling.
"I think we got a little impatient," Craft said. "If that's a strategy you're going to do, you have to make sure everybody's on the same page and knows what to do."
North, already soldiering on after losing junior Julion Pearre to injury on Friday, went nearly nine minutes without a basket in the first half and in trailing at halftime, 23-12, never recovered.
The Leopards forced North out of its original game plan and in forcing them to play straight up, imposed their will inside almost instantly.
Eckard and Ford, who respectively scored nine and six points in the win, were among the primary beneficiaries, as Lovejoy persistently attacked North on the block.
While Otubu, who led North with seven points, and senior Maliek Golden (four) helped keep North within 10 points at 33-23 by the end of the third quarter, the Lovejoy defense tightened the screws over the final eight minutes and held Lovejoy without a field goal in the fourth frame.
As the Leopards countered with nine points of their own, all North mustered was a pair of a late free throws by junior Michael Caldwell after Lovejoy had benched its starters.
"I'm mad at my assistant," Herrema joked. "With about 40 seconds left, he said that [North] hadn't score yet and I said it was just like a perfect game and that he had just jinxed us."
Although Lovejoy was denied a scoreless defensive quarter, its zero in the 13-4A loss column remained intact. The Leopards next host Denison Friday at 8 p.m. while North travels to Wylie at the same time.
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