The Emporia High boys basketball team has striven for balance all season long, and Thursday night against Junction City, the Spartans delivered.
With its inside-outside game working as well as it had all season long, Emporia turned a one-point game at halftime into a relatively easy win against the Blue Jays by a final score of 61-44.
Six players scored for Emporia, with guards Caydrick Bloomquist, Kyle deBlonk and Taylor Euler combining for 34 points, while the inside trio of Dillon Cox, Eric Dorsey and Troy Pierce put in 27 points together.
“With the guards that we have, teams respect us and our threes ... and if we get the ball inside, teams are starting to respect our big guys more, and they’ll collapse on our big guys,” said Euler, who finished with a game-high 19 points. “When our big guys kick it out, they (other teams) are going to run full speed at us, and it makes it easier for us to drive right around or dish it to the big guys again.”
For EHS coach Rick Bloomquist, who has seen his team win five games in a row to get to 11-5 overall and 6-4 in the Centennial League, the victory over Junction City was just the type of game he had been waiting for all season long.
“We went inside, and we went inside with confidence, and we finished, and it gave us a balanced night offensively,” Bloomquist said. “This is the balance I’ve talked about all season. We were very unselfish. Every kid that played was unselfish.”
Emporia led at halftime by one point at 26-25 thanks to 11 first-half points from Euler and seven from Pierce. Junction City (7-9, 3-6) hung around, however, thanks to the outside shooting of Aaron Jackson and Anthony Caine, who each hit two 3-pointers in the first 16 minutes.
“They were making shots that they’re normally not going to hit,” Euler said. “They had a couple guys that everything they threw up went in.”
The Spartans, who started the game in a 2-3 zone in order to save some energy for tonight’s game in Manhattan, switched to man-to-man defense after halftime, and Junction City simply could not keep pace after that.
Emporia outscored the Blue Jays, 35-19, after the break, which included a 15-8 burst in the third quarter that all but took Junction City out of the game.
After Caine hit his third 3-pointer of the game just 15 seconds in the third period to put Junction City up 28-26, Emporia went on a 10-2 scoring run keyed by Cox, Euler and Pierce to take the lead for good.
Cox started the second-half scoring for EHS when Euler found him underneath the basket off an out-of-bounds play for an easy lay-in to tie the game at 28. Cox put Emporia ahead with two free throws soon after, and then Euler fed Pierce on a drive inside for a layup, Euler hit a jumper just inside the three-point line and Pierce got a put-back off a Caydrick Bloomquist miss to make it 36-30 with 3 minutes left in the period.
“We were patient and took our time and worked for good shots,” Pierce said. “We took it up to another level in the second half.”
Emporia led 41-33 at the end of the third quarter, and Junction City would get no closer than five points the rest of the way, as Emporia stretched its lead to 17 points on a final basket from Euler with 27 seconds left.
Euler tried to throw an alley-oop pass to teammate Brandon Childs with less than 20 seconds remaining, hoping Childs would slam the ball home and give the game a final exclamation point. But Childs could not handle the pass, and the ball went sailing out of bounds, which led to both Euler and Childs receiving some good-natured ribbing after the game.
Meanwhile, the Spartans allowed just 19 points and held Junction City to only 28 percent (7-of-25) shooting from the field in the second half. The Spartans also out-rebounded the Blue Jays, 32-26.
“I thought our defense was very fundamental,” Rick Bloomquist said. “Our knees were bent and we had great awareness. We had great help-side defense and kept the ball in front of us, and we rebounded well, which was very important.”
The Spartans travel to Manhattan tonight to take on the Indians (8-9, 5-5). It will be Emporia’s third game in four days in addition to being Manhattan’s senior night.
However, Euler said he and the rest of the Spartans were not worried about getting fatigued or playing on the road.
“We know it’s their senior night and they’ll have a big crowd and the place will be packed,” he said. “We’ll just have to go up there and try to be party crashers. All we’re worried about is making it six wins in a row.”
Centennial League
Thursday at EHS
Junction City 12 13 8 11 — 44
Emporia 12 14 15 20 — 61
JUNCTION CITY (7-9, 3-6 Centennial League)
T. Kelly 1-6 0-0 2, A. Glover 3-8 3-3 9, A. Jackson 4-8 0-0 10, D. Sankey 0-6 2-4 2, J. Hale 1-6 1-2 3, C. Kamm 1-2 0-0 2, K. Nichols 3-6 1-4 7, A. Caine 3-6 0-0 9, T. Zimmerman 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 15-48 7-13 44.
EMPORIA (11-5, 6-4)
K. deBlonk 2-5 2-2 6, D. Cox 3-8 5-6 11, C. Bloomquist 3-11 2-2 9, T. Euler 8-13 2-4 19, T. Pierce 5-6 3-4 13, B. Childs 0-1 0-0 0, E. Dorsey 1-1 1-2, 3. Totals 22-45 15-20 61.
3-point goals — JC 5-10 (Glover 0-2, Jackson 2-2, Sankey 0-1, Caine 3-5), Emporia 2-13 (Bloomquist 1-6, Euler 1-6, Childs 0-1). Rebounds — JC 26 (Kelly 7), Emporia 32 (Pierce 9). Assists — JC 6 (Six tied at 1), Emporia 8 (deBlonk, Euler 2). Turnovers — JC 10, Emporia 7. Total fouls — JC 10, Emporia 10. Technical fouls — Emporia: Bench. Fouled out — JC: Caine.