It’s not often that a contest between heated rivals Walsh Jesuit and Archbishop Hoban can be considered finished before approaching the final quarter.
But Hoban fans were already confident of a win before the end of the first half as the Knights dominated throughout en route to a 59-26 victory over the visiting Warriors in North Coast League action on Friday night.
After Hoban junior guard Garrett Houser completed a tough extra point to give Hoban a 32-12 lead in the waning seconds of the first half, the students fired up a “Scoreboard!” chant, alluding to a foregone conclusion in their favor. The crafty drive and finish from Houser summed up the entire evening offensively for Hoban.
“I thought Garrett attacked really well,” Knights coach T.K. Griffith said. “He was pretty aggressive. Collen [Gurley] did a good job of getting into the paint, which is good for him because people think he is just a shooter.”
Though Gurley did penetrate the lane at will, he showed off his shooting touch with three 3-pointers. Two of those came in the midst of a 14-0 second-quarter run after Walsh had narrowed the Hoban advantage to 15-9. Gurley scored 10 of his game-high 22 points in the quarter.
“What I love about Collen is he wants to grow as a player,” Griffith said. “Now he can put it on the floor, go by you and get fouled. He has really worked on growing and it is nice to see the fruits of his labor.”
With the 20-point advantage, a lackluster start by Hoban wouldn’t have been a surprise out of the break. Not under Griffith’s leadership. The Knights (8-1, 2-0) continued to drive the lane relentlessly, and went on another quick 7-0 run punctuated by a steal and breakaway layup by Gurley.
“We talked at halftime about counter-punching and knockout-punching opponents,” Griffith said of his team’s effort and energy. “Let’s go ahead and shift it into another gear.”
The persistent effort was even more impressive considering Hoban employed a 2-3 zone throughout the contest. The Warriors (4-5, 0-2) could not figure out a way to beat it for several long stretches and dribbled into traps that led to fastbreak points for the Knights.
Walsh junior guard Ben Merril found the most success with a team-high nine points.
The zone was only implemented a few games back, but Griffith said he sees plenty of promise in the stingy, swarming defense.
“It is always something I’ve wanted to tinker around with,” Griffith said. “About three or four games ago, we decided to try it a little bit and it was successful, so we thought this might be something we can go to. It allows our guys to make some reads and make some plays.”
Griffith’s fine-tuning and tinkering forces teams to play uncomfortably and do things they aren’t necessarily used to doing. Those adjustments have his Knights out to a 2-0 start in conference play and in good position for a league title.
Just don’t tell Griffith that.
“I’m never all that confident. We have to work because anybody can beat us at anytime,” he said. “Every game we are going to have to fight.”