On Friday, the boys basketball team will travel to Decatur Central to play Mooresville in the sectional semi-final. Center Grove (11-11) and Mooresville (12-11) met just a few weeks ago, with Mooresville coming away with a 73-69 win on the Trojans home court.
Coming off a win against Perry Meridian in the first round of sectionals, the team will look to ride their momentum to a sectional finals appearance.
“I felt good about the Perry game because it felt good to get back in the win column and get the first sectional win,” sophomore guard Klinton South said. “I was satisfied in the way that we beat Perry, but not fully satisfied because we still have work to do and a long way to go.”
Some of that work will have to be on the defensive side of the ball, where the Trojans allowed senior power forward Brevon Burns to score 34 points, including five three pointers, in their last game against Mooresville.
“We’re switching who’s going to guard him,” head coach Zach Hahn said. “Last game, we had one of our forwards or post players guarding him, which I thought that they didn’t necessarily do a great job of adjusting to how well the kid was shooting in-game. [This time,] we’re going to use a smaller guy. [Junior] Gabe Baxter is going to guard him this game and try to use some of his speed to get up under the slower post player when he catches the ball. Hopefully that’ll help benefit us a little bit.”
The Trojans had a chance to catch a glimpse of the Pioneers’ and their offense in their loss earlier. To win, they will need to focus on Burns and senior shooting guard AJ Defur, who average 15.7 and 14.7 points per game respectively.
“Offensively, they [have] a couple of guys who can go off or get going for big games if you let them get comfortable early,” Goodpaster said. “We learned that [Burns] definitely is better offensively than we had previously planned, and the loss definitely makes us want to really go get this one.”
South, who scored 15 points in the sectional opener, and junior center Brayden Goodpaster, who scored 6 points against Perry, will look to spearhead a performance to match Mooresville’s high-powered offense. The Pioneers have scored over 70 points in three of their last four games, but they have also conceded over 70 points in three of them as well.
“Going against Mooresville, they switch up their defense a lot, so [if we] just handle the pressure, [and keep] their better players uncomfortable and not [let] them get hot, we can do this. [We] just [need to be] dictating pace and staying solid and talking on the defensive end,” Goodpaster said.
The Trojans went into sectionals with a four game losing streak, where they struggled with zone defense and turnovers. Against Mooresville, eliminating those mistakes will be an offensive key.
“[Mooresville has] shown a lot of zones, and we’ve struggled lately with zones, so I’m anticipating that’s probably going to do,” Hahn said. “They’re gonna play a little 2-3 and a little 1-3-1. The biggest thing is just about ball security. No matter the number of ball possessions that we get, we can’t have more than ten turnovers. If you have more than ten turnovers, you’re not going to win many games. For us, on Friday and hopefully Saturday, it’s going to be all about ball control and just valuing the basketball.”
Following a 21-5 season last year, the Trojans have had a down year of sorts this year following the departure of key seniors. However, the conversation surrounding this season has given them extra motivation heading into the postseason.
“I feel that our biggest motivator this season has been proving that we are still a championship team given that we lost a lot of seniors last year,” South said. “We don’t consider ourselves personally as underdogs but we know some people do. I feel that it gives us motivation every night to prove we are the better team.”
With a sectional championship appearance on the line, the Trojans will want to win against Mooresville not only to advance in the IHSAA bracket, but also to win season-defining hardware.
“A sectional championship would mean a lot because it would be the first one I have got that I was actually a contributor or factor in. That’s been our goal all season, to win championships, so it would help define this season for sure,” Goodpaster said.
