BLOOMINGTON – Tremont High’s boys’ basketball team managed to make a big deal out of their first round game at the 97th McLean County Basketball Tournament Tuesday.

The Turks recovered from a sluggish start to beat Ridgeview High, 75-51, before a crowd of 500 fans at Illinois Wesleyan’s Shirk Center. Head Coach Ron Martin’s team will take on the winner of the contest between GCMS from Gibson City and Fisher. Tip-off for that game is Thursday at 8p.m. at the Shirk Center. The winner of that game advances to the tournament title game Saturday night.

Although they jumped out to a 17-9 lead on the strength of baskets by senior center Jake Szetela, junior winger Michael Galat, and junior guard Jeremy Pflederer, some sagging defense on the Turks’ part allowed Ridgeview to climb back into the game.

As a result, Ridgeview scored six unanswered points as the first quarter closed, courtesy of baskets by senior guard Trevor Trhlik and junior center Casey Heimer, and two free throws by senior forward Josh Peterson, giving the Turks a narrow 17-16 lead to open the second quarter.

The Turks went on a 6-0 run to open the second quarter on three unanswered buckets by Szetela and two baskets by senior forward Michael Gibbons to increase the Turks’ lead to 23-16, with 6:06 left.

But starting with a trey by Mustangs’ senior guard Bradley Ghere to cut Tremont’s lead to 23-19, Ridgeview rattled off eight unanswered points, overtaking Tremont, 24-23, with three minutes until halftime.

A trey by Tremont senior guard Jim Kuban with 2:20 until half, would put the Turks up 29-26, propelling them toward their eventual 32-29 lead at intermission.

Two threes by junior guard Todd Cantrell, and one more each from Kuban and Pflederer, along with a tighter defense in the second half helped Tremont move toward creating a 54-39 deficit for Ridgeview as the fourth quarter started, and the Turks’ defense baffled Ridgeview into committing fouls, further increasing Tremont’s lead from the free throw line.

Four Turks players were in double-figures, led by Kuban with 15 points. He was followed by Szetela’s 14, and 13 each from Pflederer and senior guard Philip Schaefer. Ridgeview sophomore guard Bradley Ghere was the only Mustangs player in double-figures, scoring 11.

Tremont head coach Ron Martin said his team was not applying pressure to Ridgeview in the first half, but that that changed at the start of the third quarter.

“(In the first half), we weren’t making (Ridgeview) do anything that was uncomfortable,” Martin said. “(Ridgeview was) shooting wide-open threes. We weren’t challenging shots. But in the second half…our intensity…I thought we started to pick that (part of our game) up.

“When you put pressure on people, eventually, it’s going to wear them down,” he said.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 1:33 am and is filed under Pekin Daily Times, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.