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RURAL STREATOR – Every basketball team suffers through a few bad stretches from time to time.
Not every team makes you pay as instantly or as heavily for them as the Serena Huskers.
Using a full-court trapping defense, pinpoint interior passing and a smooth fast-break, the one-loss Huskers handled another Class 1A team off to a pretty good start this season, dealing the host Woodland Warriors a 71-42 nonconference loss Monday at the Warrior Dome.
“It starts with our defense. We were putting them in tough positions.”
— Dain Twait, Serena boys basketball coach
“A lot of it comes out of our press,” said senior forward Richie Armour, who was at the center of that transition game with his 18-point, eight-rebound, five-steal effort. “A lot of what we do is run-and-gun. That fits our offense the best, so we press a lot, and whenever we get stops, stops lead to scores. Pressure defense is what works for us the best.
“Four or five of us have been playing together since middle school. We have a connection like no other team, so we know where we’re going to be, who’s hot and who’s not.”
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It was the lightning-quick transition game of Serena (17-1) that turned a two-point game in the final moments of the first into a 25-9 deficit for the Warriors (12-6) by the close of the quarter. The Huskers off a blocked shot got a layup at the other end, then forced three consecutive Woodland turnovers in the backcourt and another in the frontcourt – all four of those ending in Serena layups as well.
“They don’t make many mistakes,” Woodland coach Connor Kaminke said of the Huskers. “They play at a high level, they’re very well-coached and they’re disciplined. They just make it tough on you for 32 minutes, make it tough to get into your half-court offense, to get into your sets.
“It’s a difficult game, and we knew that coming in. I give [Serena] a lot a lot a lot of credit. At the end of the day, this is one loss. We need to learn from it and respond.”
In addition to Armour’s big game, Tanner Faivre scored a game-best 22 points to go with four assists and three steals; Hunter Staton put up 19 points, five rebounds and three assists; Carson Baker finished with six points and Beau Raikes contributed four assists and three steals with his two points.
“When we can put together stops defensively,” Serena coach Dain Twait said, “this team can run, we can shoot it all over the place. ... I know we’ve played a few since that Lexington game (the Huskers’ lone loss of the season in the championship game of the Marquette Christmas Tournament), but we never got anything in transition going in that one. And I know you have to get stops to do that and whatever, and maybe it was a little bit of [tired] legs, but I was very happy with how we did that tonight.
“It starts with our defense. We were putting them in tough positions.”
Although they had good stretches of play – most notably in the opening quarter before the Huskers’ 14-0 run and in the third when Serena made an effort to slow things down and Woodland’s Jonathan Moore used his drive-and-dish game to spark the home team’s offense – the Warriors struggled to 34.1% shooting (15 of 44), committed 16 first half turnovers on their way to 22 for the game and did not produce a double-digit scorer. Tucker Hill canned three 3s and Nick Plesko two, both finishing with nine points. Connor Dodge added seven points, while Moore finished with six points, five assists, six rebounds and a trio of steals.
On the other end, Serena’s steal-and-layup game fueled an eye-popping 63.3% shooting performance (31 of 49). The Huskers also committed only five first half turnovers and outrebounded their hosts 27-23.