Boys basketball: Host Reapers deny Burlington Central chance to repeat at Plano Christmas Classic

PLANO – Isaiah Martinez has missed a good chunk of his high school playing days due to injuries.

The Plano junior has worked too hard to come back to miss free throws when they matter most.

After missing his first attempt, Martinez calmly sank the second with 8.5 seconds remaining as Plano slipped past Burlington Central, 64-60, during Thursday’s quarterfinal in the 60th annual Plano Christmas Classic.

“I wish I would’ve made both of them, but you know I just had to focus and make that second free throw,” he said. “It’s been a journey getting back to playing again, and playing in those situations with a crowd and everything is a lot different from when I played my freshman year, but I think I’m getting back into it.”

Burlington Central (8-4) was vying for its third straight Plano Christmas Classic championship. No one other than the Rockets has won the tournament since Peoria Notre Dame won the year before COVID shut the tournament down in 2020.

“It’s just a great win to beat a team like that, a great program, a top 3A program around,” Plano coach Kyle Kee said. “They’re good every year and have top players and they’ve done well here so just to be able to beat them makes it even more special.”

Plano, which was unseeded, has now beaten No. 8 Morris and No. 2 Burlington Central on back-to-back nights. The Reapers advanced to the semifinals for the first time in 15 years where they will take on Marmion at 8:30 p.m. Friday.

The Reapers (7-7) were able to advance thanks to agitating the Rockets with their defensive pressure in the third quarter to turn the game around. Offensively, they got it done with a balanced attack, led by A.J. Johnson’s 18 points, four assists and four steals.

“Our practices have been pretty deadly,” he said. “Our coaches are just making sure we’re on top of everything defensively.”

While they trailed 32-24 at halftime, the Reapers erased that deficit, outscoring the Rockets 24-11 in the third quarter to take a 48-43 lead.

“They are a very good team defensively and offensively, so we were just making sure we were getting after them,” Johnson said. “We knew how much we were down by going into half and coach (Kyle) Kee made sure we didn’t come out soft and that we were a physical team.”

Kee instructed his kids to commit to their new trapping defensive pressure in the third quarter.

“I think Central runs a very good offense, which makes it tough and we weren’t ready for some of their action which is why we went zone,” he said. “And we’ve been practicing that trap and really I put it in because I was mad at them for not playing very hard (recently) so I just wanted to get them out and going crazy. I figured let’s do it and as long as we’re going fast and getting after people it’s a tough little press. Maybe when people start seeing us, it’ll be a little bit tougher to do, but it’s scrambling and effort.”

Davione Stamps had 12 points and Christ Keleba and Martinez each had 10 for the Reapers.

Jake Johnson led all scorers with 26 points. His fifth 3-pointer of the game with 1:20 left brought the Rockets to within 62-60, but they wouldn’t get any closer.

After AJ Johnson split a pair of free throws to make it 63-60, Jake Johnson missed the game-tying 3 the other way.

Myles Lowe added 17 points and 10 rebounds for the Rockets.