TOPEKA — After watching his team fall 74-64 to Topeka High on Tuesday night, Emporia High boys basketball coach Rick Bloomquist was upset.
Not because Emporia let a 27-14 second-quarter lead slip to a 36-34 halftime deficit or because the Spartans gave up an 11-0 run out of halftime to fall behind 47-34.
No, Bloomquist was upset his squad even had to play the game in Topeka High’s Dungeon gym in the first place.
Emporia had played three games in three days this past weekend with only one day of rest in between then and Tuesday night’s game. The game against Topeka High was originally scheduled for Friday but was moved to Tuesday back in October.
“Sincerely, I won’t make excuses, and I won’t fault my kids and I won’t fault their effort, but this is suspect. It’s just poor scheduling,” Bloomquist said. “We shouldn’t have had to do it. It’s not fair to the kids, and if I were scheduling it, it wouldn’t have happened. People need to be more aware of scheduling.”
Bloomquist was mostly upset because his squad had little time to recover from playing in the Paul Terry Classic last week, and the Spartans’ fatigue showed against the Trojans.
Things looked to be going great for the Spartans to open the game, as three Caydrick Bloomquist 3-pointers in the first five minutes of play helped Emporia (2-2, 0-1) jump out to a 15-7 lead, which it eventually strung out to 22-14 by the end of the first quarter.
“I think in the beginning of the game, we came out running and shooting and came out pretty good,” Caydrick said. “In the first quarter, we played great and put up 22 points.”
A free throw from Taylor Euler and two driving layups from Kyle deBlonk stretched Emporia’s lead out to 27-14 just minutes into the second quarter, and it looked as if the Spartans might run away with the game.
But a layup and foul shot by Topeka High’s Chris White-Ready helped set off a 22-2 run by the Trojans — who were spurred on by eight points each from Justin Purtee and LaShawn Kelley — that melted away Emporia’s lead and instead left the Spartans looking up at a 36-29 hole. Emporia managed to close the half on a 5-0 run to cut the lead to 36-34 at the break, but that would be as close as the Spartans would get the rest of the game.
“After the first quarter, it was going pretty good,” senior forward Dillon Cox said. “I thought, ‘If we keep this up, we’ll win by 20 or 30.’ But then I realized that everybody was starting to get tired in the second quarter, and as the game went on, we all just got more and more tired.”
The Spartans came out flat to begin the second half, and the Trojans took full advantage. Topeka High (2-1, 1-0) ran off an 11-0 run to open the second half, equaling the game’s largest lead for either side at 47-34, and the Spartans never got closer than six the rest of the game.
“They had a great run at the beginning of the second half,” Caydrick said. “You could say that that was where it all started to go wrong. We did try hard, but they were fresh-legged and ready to play.”
Now the frustrating part for the Spartans is that after one day of rest for Tuesday night’s game, they won’t play again until Jan. 5 at Topeka West.
“I won’t make excuses,” Bloomquist told his team, “but you guys were tired, and fatigue played a factor in this game. They (Topeka High) were fresh and ready for you guys, and we only had one day of rest. Don’t be disappointed, because you guys played hard. You just got tired.”
Euler led Emporia with 20 points on 8-of-17 shooting, while Caydrick added 17 points. Cox led the Spartans in rebounding with 10 after not grabbing a single board Saturday against Blue Valley West.
Purtee scored a game-high 27 points to lead the Trojans and also pulled down 10 boards. White-Ready scored 10 points and grabbed 10 rebounds for Topeka High.