CENTERBURG – When the Centerburg boys basketball team took the floor on Friday, Dec. 4 for its season-opening game against Northmor, senior forward Carter Jones wasn’t thinking about milestones.
Still, he quickly dispatched of the milestone by scoring the first four points of the game and went on to finish with 12 points, 11 rebounds, four assists and four steals to lead the Trojans to a 53-38 victory in Knox Morrow Athletic Conference play.
“Pretty much as soon as we got dressed, I forgot about the 1,000 points (milestone) and I didn’t think about it until the game stopped,” Jones said. “I’m glad I got it out of the way early; it was nice and we won.”
The Trojans opened the game 11-2 on the strength of 3-pointers by Landon Griffith and Jones. Northmor closed to within 15-10 in the second quarter, but Centerburg closed the half 13-5 and added an 8-0 run to start the second half to balloon the lead to 36-15.
Centerburg coach John Marhefka picked up his first win in charge of the Trojans since he coached the team the first time around in 2015. His message was simple heading into the game.
“We told them to be present in the moment because this year has been a crazy year,” Marhefka said. “I told them to enjoy it and have some fun.”
Centerburg has seen its share of tumult this offseason with a coaching change and a quarantine.
“We’re a pretty close-knit group,” Jones said. “We know what we have to do this year to be successful. That’s been our mindset since October when we had a coaching change. We all just know what we have to do and we’re willing to share and listen to each other.”
Opening with the Golden Knights, who shared the KMAC championship with the Trojans last season was a dive into the deep end early.
“We had one scrimmage and then we had six days of practice before this game after a little bit of a layoff,” Marhefka said. “So, I think they did pretty well. But we’re going to come back to work. They’re a good group of young men. They’re learning; they’re listening. It wasn’t a fault of effort – it’s repetition and game experience and getting into that atmosphere.”
But Northmor is swimming in its own deep end with Blade Tackett taking over for Zach Ruth this offseason. The Knights are 0-3 overall and 0-1 in the league after losses Pleasant and Johnstown.
“(They are) super-athletic teams; super-physical teams and great basketball programs,” Tackett said. “So, we’ve had a bit of a grind here the first three games. I credit our kids for sticking together. We just gotta take that next steps to try to take care of the ball and give ourselves a chance.”
Against Centerburg, Graisen Cass had a game-high 20 points and added two assists and two steals, Max Lower pulled down a game-high 15 rebounds to go with five points and Gavin Miller chipped in four points and eight rebounds for the Knights.
“If you look at all three of our games, it’s been a lot of the same stuff,” Tackett said. “We’ve struggled to handle pressure; we’re in foul trouble in about every game. Our kids – there’s no fault to their effort – they play hard. We just have to work on being under control and get used to the speed of the varsity game and the physicality that it takes.”
Griffith and Alex Johnson finished with eight points apiece and Mick Mead added six points, five rebounds, four assists and four steals for the Trojans.
