Author Spotlight
Kyle Winston
The 21-2 Lancers take on the 14-9 Blue Valley West Jaguars in the state semifinals with a trip to the championship game on the line. The seventh seeded Jaguars took down KU commit Conner Frankamp and the number two seed Wichita North Redskins in the only upset of the state tournament thus far. The Jaguars have seen success in the state tournament before, winning it all in 2007.
Head Coaches Donnie Campbell and Shawn Hair are no strangers, their teams have met in the postseason the last two years, splitting the matchups and ending each others seasons.
East and West also met earlier in the season at the McPherson tournament where the Lancers easily won by 12 points. For the Lancers, seniors Vance Wentz and Zach Schneider led the charge with 19 and 16 points respectively. The only player who had a notable game for the Jaguars was senior big man Joey Lillis who scored 11 points and pulled down seven rebounds.
Lillis who averages 13.8 points per game (PPG) and is their senior leader will lead West into this final four matchup with the Lancers along with Connor Kaiser (9.1 PPG) and Blaise Gammon (10 PPG). Sophomore Guard Kaiser had a big game against Wichita North leading the team in scoring with 13 points and is the primary ball handler for the Jaguars. Gammon, who scored nine points against the Redskins, is a 6’7″ sophomore plays a similar type of game as East big Lucas Jones.
To win tonight Coach Hair thinks East will have to step it up.
“I think we are going to have to play better than we played Wednesday, we didn’t play very good,” Hair said. “We turned the ball over 20 times and didn’t shoot very well. We are going to have to just make sure we play well, that is the basic. If we play well tonight we will be okay.”
Both frontcourts have similarities. Schneider and Lillis are both senior leaders who have been on Varsity since their freshman years and are arguably the two teams best players. Jones and Gammon are long and lanky sophomores who have both been big parts of the team this season. Those two matchups will likely carry over to who is matched up in the game on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball.
Schneider and Jones will be the key to the Lancers offense feeding the ball inside like they have done the whole season.
“We aren’t going to go away from our game plan, we have to go inside,” Hair said.
Schneider is one of the most efficient scorers in Kansas, usually taking high percentage shots and getting to free throw line where he is a 91% shooter.
One of the keys to the game will be tempo.
“Coach Campbell’s teams usually play low scoring basketball,” Hair said. “It will be a tempo type game and it will be important for us to speed the tempo as much as we can, but I know it will most likely be a dogfight low scoring game.”
East has played up tempo all season long and did a good job against BV West earlier in the year getting easy buckets in transition. On the other hand, West slowed down the tempo against the Redskins and pulled off the upset.
How the Lancers defend the Jaguars is another big key to Coach Hair. East will switch between man-to-man and a 2-3 zone most of the night. While West will primarily play man the majority of the game. The Lancers brought out their version of the 1-2-2 press for the first time in the first meeting between the two squads, it was very effective causing numerous turnovers and points in transition.
The game will be a lot more than X’s and O’s, both squads desperately want to win so they have a shot at the championship game.
“This is what we play for,” East senior guard Chase Hanna said.
If the Lancers win this would be the first time they have made it back to the Championship game since 2006 where they lost to Wichita Northwest. The winner of the game tonight will play the winner between #1 Blue Valley Northwest and Derby.
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