Lake Central stops Trojans, 60-50

Tom Keegan
onwardtrojans.com

It’s difficult to win a basketball game when making just one field goal the first 13 minutes of the second half.
Chesterton failed to overcome that drought and lost Friday night to visiting Lake Central, 60-50.
“It was disappointing because as well and connected as we played against Crown Point, I thought (Lake Central) played harder than us, and that’s something I can’t accept, I just can’t accept,” ninth-year Chesterton coach Marc Urban said. “They outrebounded us. They defended with purpose, and we didn’t. And for whatever reason, you take two steps forward, and we took a big step back tonight, and we have a month to figure this out. It’s frustrating, but you’ve got to grow. We have to figure out how to not let teams play harder than us. I feel we’ve done a pretty good job of that throughout the season, but tonight that didn’t happen, and that’s shame on us.”
As well as Lake Central (5-10 overall, 2-2 in the DAC) defended and rebounded, the Trojans couldn’t afford to miss layups and foul shots (13 of 22 from the line, compared to 19 of 26 for the visitors) and they missed too many of both.
“We missed so many layups,” Urban said. “We were missing layups on breakouts. We were missing layups on drives. Layups.”
Chesterton used a 20-point second quarter to take a 29-24 lead into intermission, but LC took control in the third period and entered the fourth with a 45-38 advantage. The lead swelled to 51-39 and the Trojans’ late rally that cut the lead to five points with 1:07 left fell short.
The game was not without its Chesterton highlights.
The ovation for international student Bradly Basila of the Democratic Republic of Congo when he came off the bench to debut early in the first quarter after starting center Caden Schneider was whistled for his second foul heightened the buzz in the building.
Basila’s first bucket came courtesy of fancy footwork and a soft shot off the glass. His next, also in the second period, came when he faced up outside the 3-point line, looked inside for an open teammate, looked back at the rim, and smoothly shot a 3-pointer over his shorter defender. His swish was greeted with an eruption from the big crowd. At the other end, Basila skied to pull the next shot that went up off the rim.
Most of the 6-foot-7 freshman’s shots at close range rolled off the rim, and as expected from a player new to his team, he was caught out of position at both ends at times.
“I think that there is excitement with it. It’s new to him. It’s new to us,” Urban said. “Once he gets settled in, he’s obviously going to be just fine, and then we have to figure out how to play with him, too. I felt we slowed down a little, trying to get it to him, which we did, but we have to figure out how to mesh. You add somebody mid-season there is going to be an adjustment period. Is that an excuse? Absolutely not. They played harder than us, but we do have to figure it out in a little bit.”
Depending what is determined by the IHSAA blind draw, Chesterton will open the five-school Valparaiso sectional either March 4 or March 7. By then, Basila will have more than six weeks as a Trojan.
“He’s been practicing with us for two weeks now and he did some good things, but there are things he’s going to continue to get better at obviously, because he’s coming into a new system at both ends of the floor,” Urban said. “He’s going to get there, it’s just going to take us a little bit of time.”
Other Chesterton highlights from the 10-point loss included junior Rob Czarniecki, honored in a quick pregame ceremony for making all-state in baseball last spring, stealing six points out of thin air with hustle by muscling two offensive rebounds and immediately whipping passes to open 3-point shooters who buried them; Sophomore Malachi Ransom driving down the right baseline at warp speed for two of his 11 points; junior Jaylon Watts scoring a team-high 15 points.
But the highlights weren’t enough to counteract LC’s superior work on the boards and the standout play of seniors Zachary Greene (27 points), a hard-driving guard, and muscular 6-5 post man Jorand Ireland (eight points), as well as junior Noah Enyeart (17 points).
The Trojans (8-8, 1-3) are right back at it tonight, playing at home in a non-conference game vs. Hanover Central (8-7), tipoff at 7.

Lake Central 60, Chesterton 50

Lake Central 10 14 21 15–60
Chesterton 9 20 9 12–50

Chesterton scoring: Tobias Ray 6, Malachi Ransom 11, Jaylon Watts 15, Logan Pokorney 11, Caden Schneider 0, Bradly Basila 7, Rob Czarniecki 0, Anthony Gonzalez 0.