DANVILLE — For one half, Lebanon gave the Danville boys’ basketball team all it could handle in Saturday night’s sectional championship.
The Tigers kept close and even moved to within three of the Warriors, but a strong second half effort propelled Danville to a 68-52 victory.
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“It was a hard fought game like we knew it was going to be,” Danville coach Brian Barber said. “It was a good win for our guys and I’m just really proud of them. You don’t win three games in a week without having everybody contributing.”
One of the reasons for Danville’s success is its inside-out game. Six-foot-10 Warrior Travis Carroll demands so much of opposing teams’ respect in the paint, when he kicks the ball back to the outside and the rest of the team passes to find the open man, Danville becomes hard to contain.
Four Warriors scored in double figures and Jordan Weidner, Saturday’s beneficiary of this system, led Danville with 23 points.
“That’s what makes us the team that we are,” Weidner said. “We have so many guys that can get the job done. That’s what makes our team so good is that we have five guys that can score in double figures any night.”
After building a 10-5 lead the Warriors went on an 8-0 run while holding the Tigers scoreless for three minutes. Lebanon answered with a 6-0 run to end the quarter, but Danville led 18-13 heading to the second.
“I thought the first half we played really well defensively,” Lebanon coach Tom Johnson said. “We wanted to make Travis pass it out and then close out well. At times we did a really good job with it.”
Danville again extended its lead to a 10 points, but Lebanon pulled back within three at 26-23 with just under four minutes remaining in the half.
In a tightly officiated game, both teams hit the bonus with more than half of the second quarter left and Lebanon took advantage, hitting 5-of-8 free throws in that period.
Free throws hurt the Warriors in the first half as Danville shot 4-of-12 from the charity stripe, going 0-for-6 in the second quarter.
Danville began the third on a 7-0 run as Warrior Tyler Hall started it with a three-pointer from the left corner, Carroll put together a nice move in the paint and Weidner went coast-to-coast, prompting Lebanon to call timeout.
Danville started out 6-of-6 from the field and built a 47-27 lead before Tiger Trey Hendrix cut into it with a three-pointer with 3:30 remaining in the third.
“That is our game every (time) when it is close,” Weidner said. “We always come out in the second half, we get a big run and that gets us going. That’s kind of our thing I guess you could call it.”
The Tigers trailed 47-36 going into the fourth quarter but built some momentum after scoring the last six points of the third. Danville kept the Tigers at bay and hit 7-of-9 free throws down the stretch to close out the game.
Danville (23-1) moves on to play Brebeuf (14-8) and will renew a decade long rivalry with the Braves.
“It’ll be a dog fight with them the whole way,” Barber said. “That’s the way it was last time with them here about a month ago. The last game went down to the wire. We’re looking forward to the challenge.”
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