Boys basketball: Inside-out La Salle-Peru reverses focus, beats Sycamore

LA SALLE – La Salle-Peru coach Jim Cherveny would prefer to have his defense create opportunities for his team’s offense, but as long as it ends up with the same result his Cavaliers got Tuesday night in A.J. Sellett Gymnasium, he’s not about to argue.

After a lackluster effort in the first half left them trailing visiting Sycamore by two points, the Cavs switched up their offensive focus and instead of running it through sharpshooter John Riva on the perimeter, ran it through post Josh Senica in the paint.

After Senica got four quick points to tie the score at the start the third quarter, the Spartans began to double-team him inside, a change they quickly regretted. The 6-foot-4 sophomore kicked the ball out to senior Sean Whitfield for two crucial back-to-back 3-pointers to highlight a 22-4 scoring burst that earned the hosts a 47-36 Interstate Eight Conference victory.

Senica finished with team highs of 14 points and nine rebounds, while Whitfield tossed in 11 points and Riva nine for L-P (8-3, 2-0 I-8).

For the Spartans (4-4, 2-1), Teague Hallahan came off the bench for a team-best 11 points, six of those on 3-pointers in the second quarter that allowed the visitors to take that slight edge at the break.

“We knew we didn’t play great in the first half, so we made some adjustments,” Cherveny said, “but the turning point came when we got post touches to open up the outside game. We got down the floor quickly in transition, and Sean hit those back-to-back 3-pointers from the right wing. That changed the whole complexion of the game right there.

“It’s usually a dunk or a 3-pointer that changes the complexion of the game, and tonight it was the 3. When you hit back-to-back shots like that, it gives you lots of momentum.

“We like to say that our defense starts our offense, but tonight, it was the other way around, backwards from the coach’s perspective. … Not every game is perfect, but we executed down the stretch when we had to.”

It was a back-and-forth start until Hallahan connected on consecutive 3-pointers for a 15-8 Sycamore advantage, but the Cavs, hampered by five turnovers in each of the first two quarters, netted six of the last eight points in the half to draw within 19-17 on Senica’s putback of a London Cabrera miss at the buzzer.

A basket by Lucas Winburn off a Sam Stoner pass widened the lead to four before Senica started the decisive rally off a lob inside and two free throws. On the next trip down, the ball was lobbed inside again, but this time he passed it out to Whitfield for a bomb from the right side. On the next trip, the same thing happened, and suddenly the Cavaliers were up six.

Tyler Wrobleski later hit a 3 and Whitfield a baseline drive to up the L-P lead to 32-23. Then Riva capped the 20-6 quarter with a 3-pointer and a fast-break bucket to make it 37-25 headed to the fourth.

For the game, the Cavs claimed a 31-21 edge on the glass and sank 17 of 31 shots for 54.8% from the floor. The Spartans shot 28.8% (13 of 45).

“I thought we played a really good first half, forced 11 turnovers, and we did a relatively good job of keeping the ball out of [Senica’s] hands,” Sycamore coach Andrew Stacy said. “But in the second half, they made a concerted effort to get the ball inside, and when we went to double him he kicked it out, and they made three inside-out 3s in a row. And when we didn’t double, he went to work inside, and we just didn’t have an answer.

“They’re a very good team. They have the record they have for a reason. They have a lot of weapons, and you have to pick your poison, and tonight they waited to get the mismatches they wanted and took advantage of it.”