by HUNTING VALLEY, Ohio– The pressure and pace-of-play seemed to favor the Lancers early throughout the first half. The Preppers took a 5-2 lead within the first minute of the game and that didn’t last long as that was their only lead of the first half.
Both teams traded away turnovers early and often as the rivals combined to commit a total of 12 turnovers in the first eight minutes of the game. The Lancers ended the final seven minutes of the first quarter on a 14-8 run to take a 16-13 lead following the first quarter.
That seemed to be the begging of the end for the Preppers in the first half as junior Zachary Titas displayed an outside shot that took the Lancers team to another level closing out the first half. It was a series of runs that sparked the Lancers to continue to grow their lead in the first half as Titas knocked down six 3-pointers in the first half. His 3-pointers with two minutes left in the first half put his team ahead 32-16. That 3-pointer was Titas’s 16th point, matching the team total for the Preppers at the time.
The Lancers would head into halftime with a commanding 39-18 lead and they even held Prepper senior guard Justin Belcher to zero points in the first half, something pretty significant as Belcher scored his 1,000th point just a week ago.
“I’m proud of our guys, I thought we battled through some ebbs and flows of the game and to our credit, I just thought we wore them out in those half-court possessions,” Gilmour head coach Dan DeCrane said.
The shots still weren’t falling for the Preppers throughout the second half. Though three quarters the Lancers connected on 12 3-pointers to just one from the Preppers. That was the difference Friday night as nothing seemed to fall all night for the Preppers and the Lancers made things very difficult for them to get to the rim for any easy points near the rim.
The Lancer lead got as high as 30 points throughout the second half as they would go on to win 69-49, securing their first win over their rival in two years.
Titas paced all scorers with a game-high along with a career-high 24 points, burying seven 3-pointers during the win as well.
“We had three days to prep on these guys so as a team we were super prepared and I knew exactly what I was going to do to win this game,” Titas explained. “I shot it terribly in warmups but once I hit the first one I knew I was going to be able to hit a bunch.”
As a team, the Lancers were able to sink 15 3-pointers Friday night compared to just two from University School, and that was the main difference.
Jimmy Lawless, Brady Olsen and Tim Lee rounded out the scoring during the win, pouring in 12, 9, and 9 points, respectively for the Lancers.
As for the Preppers, Justin Belcher finished with a team-high 14 points along with 13 points coming from Duke Brennan.
