COLLINSVILLE – Trevion Swygeart helped lead a Collinsville 12-3 run late in the third quarter after Metro-East Lutheran pulled to within eight, and it helped the Kahoks go on to a 71-48 win over the Knights in a boys basketball game played Friday night at Vergil Fletcher Gym.
Metro-East trailed at halftime 24-22, but a Kahok run at the start of the third quarter allowed Collinsville to extend its lead, then the run at the end of the period helped keep the Knights at bay in going on to the win.
Metro-East head coach Anthony Smith acknowledged the kind of team Collinsville is, crediting the Kahoks for their performance.
“Different caliber team,” Smith said. “You talk about Southwestern Conference schools. They’re a good team, but I never thought we executed anything to alleviate it. We had them down to eight points. For some of our reasoning, we never could turn over the top to get ourselves going. So it’s a good lesson for our team. They’re a good ball club, they executed well, they hit their cuts and they made plays, and we didn’t recover on defense. You just can’t beat a Southwestern Conference team like that.”
Smith knows that he has good video to look over the mistakes his team made, and be able to work on them in practice.
“I’ve got a ton of video to look at,” Smith said. “And basically, our weak side defense and our offensive sets were non-existent. We pounded the ball inside to the big boy. We never ran an offensive set, which against a Southwestern Conference school, any good team, it’s not going to happen.”
The Collinsville press did seem to bother the Knights, but again, the lack of execution on offense hurt Metro-East the most.
“I wasn’t thinking it was anything with the press, once we got to the half court, we never ran an offensive set,” Smith said. “Like we never ran anything. We were four out at one end, the ball goes into the big boy, and everyone else stood around, taking pictures and spectating. They could have been in the stands watching, because it doesn’t work. If they come out and trap down, we kick out and just take a quick shot. That’s not good basketball, and it doesn’t work, They proved it to us tonight. The score is what you get when you don’t play team basketball.”
The Kahoks bounced back nicely from a loss to Edwardsville the night before, but the lack of practice time has been a thorn in the side of many a team in the shortened season, where games can be played on consecutive nights.
“Nobody’s practiced,” said Collinsville head coach Darin Lee. “As a team, we’ve probably practices six, seven nights. We just play games, so we haven’t even practiced. We usually don’t press a team in our conference, so anyway, we had a good session the day before the game, we’re playing a lot of games, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday. A lot of games, we have to use a lot of bodies.”
Although there’s many back-to-back games, it’s what Lee wants for his team in the shortened season.
“Well, it’s tough, but it’s what we want,” Lee said. “We’ve got to get games in, and we’re going to try to get as many games in as we can. So we didn’t get to play in November, December and January. So we’re going to play as many as we can. It’s going to be hard, when we get JV games in. The guys are going to have to sub, run guys in and out, use our depth. Hopefully, we can get through it.”
Lee felt the Kahoks bounced back nicely from the loss to Edwardsville the night before.
“Yeah, I was,” Lee said. “We shot it better. Obviously, we were able to wear them down a little bit, and we were able to just play better. We just made some shots.”
The teams started the game with an exchange of baskets that made it 4-4 early on before the Kahoks went on an 8-0 run, highlighted by baskets from Nate Hall and a three from Kyle Moore that made it 12-4 for Collinsville. The Knights fought back on a pair of Smith free throws and a three from Champ Chipman to cut the lead to 14-9, but a pair of baskets from Devin Davis and another from Dayton Horras gave Collinsville a 20-11 lead after the first quarter.
A Chipman basket and free throw cut the lead to 20-14 at the start of the second quarter, but the Kahoks took off on an 8-0 run, with Hall and Matt Clark leading the way to make it 28-14 before a three from Luke Neath ended the run. The Kahoks then outscored the Knights 6-5 at the end of the period to take a 34-22 lead at halftime.
The teams again exchanged baskets to start the second half, and back-to-back baskets from Neath and Smith cut the Kahok lead to 38-30. Swygeart scored underneath, and Zion Tucker canned a three to make it 40-33, but threes from both Swygeart and Moore highlighted a 10-0 run that made the score 50-33 for Collinsville at three quarter time.
The Kahoks extended the lead to 55-35 early in the final quarter, and then outscored Metro-East 16-13 in the remainder of the period to go on to the 71-48 win.
Collinsville was led by Swygeart’s 19 points, with Hall adding 15 points and Moore chipping in 12. DaMarcus Bean led the Knights with 16 points, while Smith added 15 points and Tucker having seven points.
Metro-East is now 4-1 on the year, and travel to Breese Mater Dei Catholic this afternoon for a 1:30 p.m. start, then host Marquette Catholic Monday night in a 7:30 p.m. start. The Kahoks are now 3-3, and play at Belleville East Saturday afternoon in a 2:30 p.m. start, then are at Madison Monday night, with the start time 7:30 p.m.
