Dec 29, 2017 4 min read

When the Canon-McMillan Big Macs are at their best, they are using their athleticism to penetrate the lane and kick out to open shooters behind the three-point line.

Coach Rick Bell’s team executed that game plan to perfection Friday night.

Behind 10 three-point shots and a very good 2-3 zone defense, the Big Macs won the Trinity Holiday Tournament, defeating the Hillers, 65-55.

“When we make at least three passes in our half-court offense, we are going to get the shots that we want,” Bell said. “The open shots we create with our ball movement are unbelievable and we did a good job of knocking them down tonight. We want to make the other team play defense.”

Leading 26-20 at the half, the Big Macs (1-1, 6-1) broke open the game in the third quarter, taking a 43-24 lead after a 19-2 run.

Meanwhile, the Hillers (2-1,5-3) went cold, missing their first 12 shots of the second half, making just 3 of 17 attempts overall in the third quarter.

“You have to make shots,” Trinity head coach Tim Tessmer said. “I thought we had opportunities. It would have been nice to make some of those.”

The Hillers made a run, cutting the C-M lead to 48-38 after back-to-back threes from Dylan Kern with 5:35 left but that was as close as Trinity would get. Kern scored a team-high 17 points.

After a timeout, Ethan Beachy made his fifth three-pointer and Jason Fowlkes added a pair of layups to make it 59-42.

Beachy, who didn’t score in Thursday night’s win over Brownsville, finished with 17 points.

“The great part of this team is they don’t care who scores,” Bell said. “They just want to win. It didn’t bother Ethan that he didn’t get many looks Thursday. He knew he would get his tonight and he knocked them down.”

Fowlkes led the Big Macs with 25 points. He scored 55 points in the tournament.

“The work Jason has put in has been tremendous,” Bell said. “He is such an amazing athlete, one of the best I have ever coached. It’s like me getting a new Christmas present watching him play.”

A big part of the Canon-Mac win was the defensive job it did on Trinity’s leading scorer Joey Koroly.

Koroly finished with 14 points – only two in the first half – but many of those came late in the fourth quarter.

“I have the utmost respect for Joey,” Bell said. “I coached him in AAU. I just told the guys to make him work for everything. We wanted to turn him into a jump shooter. He’s a good shooter, but he is such a phenomenal driver. We just wanted to make him work hard for everything he got.”

Jeff Ecker gave the Hillers their first lead of the night with a layup that made it 16-14.

Beachy connected on his third three-pointer of the half to give C-M the lead right back.

Chartiers-Houston 77 Brownsville 58:

Chartiers-Houston built a 17-6 lead after one quarter and cruised the rest of the way in a 77-58 victory over Brownsville in the consolation game.

The Bucs made it a point to dump the ball down into the post as center Zach Ford scored six of his 10 points early in the first quarter. Ford also grabbed eight rebounds and blocked three shots.

“It was nice to see Zach do some good things,” Chartiers-Houston head coach Eugene Briggs said. “We need him to be a scorer. He has great footwork and gets good position in the post. He just needs to be a little more aggressive scoring.”

That enabled C-H (6-2) to play inside-out as Zach Southernmade three open three-pointers in the first half as the Bucs built a 34-20 halftime lead.

Southern finished with a team-high 19 points.

Brownsville (4-5) made only 2 of 12 shots in the first quarter and shot 27 percent in the half.

The Falcons crept back into the game thanks to a big effort from both Shandon Marshall (32) and Nick Seto (21 points). The duo combined to score the Falcons first 37 points.

A layup and free throw from Marshall pulled the Falcons within eight at 45-37 late in the third quarter, but the Bucs finished the quarter on a 7-0 run after a three-point shot from Andrew Clark and back-to-back layups from Southern.

Clark finished with 18 points while Cam Hanley also finished in double figures for C-H with 16.

“We have good balance,” Briggs said. “We have three guys averaging double figures. We just need that fourth scorer to start showing up consistently.”