Good Energy
Pierce’s big game propels Spartans to 61-46 victory
By Michael Ashford
Saturday, December 9, 2006
In a barely one-minute sequence in the first half of Friday night’s basketball game against Olathe East, Emporia High junior center Troy Pierce typified his entire game.
Starting at the 3:20 mark of the first quarter, Pierce bullied his way past a Hawk defender for a layup to cap a 10-0 run for the Spartans after they had fallen behind 5-0. On the Hawks’ next possession, Pierce blocked a shot by Olathe East’s Blake Bales and picked off the rebound.
Moments later, Pierce got fouled going up for another shot and made 1 of 2 free throws.
To cap the stretch, he made the play of the night on the defensive end of the floor when he blocked a jumper by Justin Caresia, after which the Hawks’ Javon Clark got the ball and tried to put up a 3-pointer.
But the 6-foot-5, 245-pound Pierce blocked that shot too, letting out a mammoth roar after the ball went flying out of bounds.
“I didn’t really expect to block the three,” Pierce said, “I just came out with my hand up and blocked it. It felt pretty good.”
It was all part of an 18-point, 14-rebound, 5-block night for Pierce, who led the Spartans to a 61-46 victory over Olathe East in the second round of the Paul Terry Classic.
“I was feeling a lot of energy,” Pierce said, “from the crowd and from my teammates. I was just playing how I thought I should be playing.”
Pierce’s game against the Hawks came on the heels of a double-double performance on Thursday night in the season-opening win over Bellevue (Neb.) East.
EHS coach Rick Bloomquist said Pierce’s play in the early stages of this season have been something he had expected since Pierce arrived at Emporia High.
“With Troy, this doesn’t surprise me,” Bloomquist said. “I’ve said ever since I’ve been here that testosterone is a wonderful thing and what’s happening with Troy is a normal process for a teenage boy to go through.
“If you’d have seen him as a freshman or an eighth-grader, you’d have never expected this from him. But he’s got unselfish individual goals, and when you’ve got a 245-pound kid with a 7-foot wingspan playing with that kind of energy, good things are going to happen.”
The rest of the Spartans weren’t to shabby either on the defensive end, as EHS forced 15 turnovers, out-rebounded the Hawks 36-32 and held Olathe East to shoot just 17-of-52 (33 percent) from the field. The sturdy defensive effort helped spark the Spartans’ offense, with EHS hitting 45 percent of its shots, including a 50-percent shooting effort in the second quarter in which the Spartans out-scored the Hawks 21-10.
“We came up with some plays on defense that really got us going on offense,” EHS guard Kyle deBlonk said. “I think our defense got them out of their comfort zone and made them make a few more mistakes, which helped us get the ball back and run our offense.”
Emporia High held a 16-14 edge at the end of the first quarter, and then the floodgates opened, as a Caydrick Bloomquist 3-pointer ignited a 13-3 run by the Spartans that put them on their way to a 37-24 halftime lead.
After halftime, Olathe East appeared to want to slow the pace of the game and try to methodically eat at Emporia’s lead, but the Spartans countered with a trapping defense that forced the tempo of the game more in the Spartans’ favor, and the Hawks never got closer than 7 points.
“At this time of the year, our offense is going to be behind our defense,” Bloomquist said. “We know we’re not going to be real sharp offensively yet, so basically what we have to do is make the extra pass and get better ball movement, which makes the other team work more defensively and makes us a pretty good team once we’re moving offensively and defensively.”
Pierce’s big game led three other Spartans that scored in double figures, as Taylor Euler scored 12, deBlonk chipped in 11 and Bloomquist added 10. Bales led all scorers with 22 points on 8-of-21 shooting — including five 3-pointers.
The win puts Emporia in the championship game of the tournament. The Spartans will face Blue Valley West at 1:30 p.m. today at White Auditorium.
In other action Friday, Junction City defeated Basehor-Linwood, 57-45, and Bellevue beat Blue Valley West, 60-56.
At halftime of Emporia’s game on Friday, the family of Emporian Paul Terry was presented with a plaque, as Terry was posthumously inducted into the Kansas State High School Activities Association Hall of Fame.
Terry was the first black student to play basketball at Emporia High in the 1930s, helping to break the racial barrier in the state of Kansas. Terry died in 2005.