Unselfish approach and another game of hot 3-point shooting carry Chesterton to 62-38 win over Fort Wayne Snider at Grace College as Trojans improve to 3-0

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Saturday got off to a winning start for the Chesterton boys basketball team when senior Jaylon Watts was presented a character award in a brief pregame ceremony, and then for 90 minutes, Watts and teammates demonstrated a character trait that ranks second to none in basketball: unselfishness.
Nobody seemed to care who took the shots or who scored the points and it translated to a 62-38 win over Fort Wayne Snider at the nifty Manahan Orthopaedic Capital Center, where four high school games were played in one day. The Chesterton game went first and set a nice example of how to play, hustling to make all the little things big things.
“I felt that we didn’t play with a selfish bone in our body,” Urban said. “Everybody did their job and executed.”
Three games into the season, Chesterton also has shown itself to have a high degree of a word that CBS basketball analyst Clark Kellogg invented: spurtability. The Trojans have the ability to score huge point totals in short periods of time, not surprising considering how well they shoot 3-pointers, and how aggressively they look for fastbreak buckets.
The Trojans had a 17-0 run to finish the first half and a 10-0 run to end the first quarter Saturday. In Friday’s lopsided win over Washington Township, Chesterton scored the last 10 points of the first quarter and the last 15 of the second quarter. The Trojans also had an 11-0 second-quarter run during the season-opening 73-55 win over No. 4 South Bend St. Joseph.
Consistent with the theme of nobody caring where the shots and points come from, the Trojans have had a different leading scorer in every game. Tobias “TJ” Ray had 20 points in the season-opener, Bradly Basila led with 17 in the second game and Logan Pokorney’s 17 were the high Saturday. As well as they share the ball, it figures that two players share the leading scoring average, Basila and Pokorney with 14.7 points a game, and a third, Ray, is close behind with 12.7 points.
They average 9.7 3-pointers a game and eight different players have made at least one.
Pokorney came out hot and in the first quarter vs. Snider, scored 10 points, hit a pair of 3-pointers, one at the buzzer from the left corner, and led his team to a 19-11 advantage.
In the second quarter, the hot hand belonged to sophomore Cooper Huwig, who buried a trio of 3-pointers, including one at the buzzer to send Chesterton into the locker room leading 36-15.
In the third quarter it was Jaylon Watts with five points and Caden Schneider with four.
And for the second day in a row, the team received a big lift from the bench. Malachi Ransom scored 10 of the 21 bench points, Huwig nine.
“Coop, he can shoot it and that’s his X factor,” Urban said. “And he plays with a ton of confidence and we just have to keep him playing with that confidence. And you have to guard him because if you don’t, he can shoot the ball really well.”
The final play of the half was drawn up for Pokorney and Huwig’s job was to stand deep in the left corner to occupy his defender in what amounted to a decoy.
“TJ just made the right read and hit the dummy corner and Coop hit the 3,” Urban said.
Huwig took one more 3 in the second half and it was on line but short, hitting the front of the rim. He’s such a good shooter that he knows he’s not going to anger anyone by missing a shot, just by passing one up. That’s fertile soil for blossoming confidence.
“My teammates trust me, so I just shoot that thing,” Huwig said. “And the passes are on time, on target. Logan gave me on right in the pocket and I just stepped in and knocked it down, so it’s all about my teammates trusting me.”
They all show supreme trust in him and feel like when the moving bodies and basketball result in the ball landing in Huwig’s hands for an open shot, it’s been a good possession.
Ray made good decisions all day with the ball, and picked up loose balls and rebounds. Smart play has been the rule for the Trojans up and down the roster so far.
“If we can keep making the right reads, everybody, whatever their weapon is, is going to look a lot sharper, if we help each other make it look better,” Urban said. “We just have to keep making the right decisions and keep putting pressure on the defense with our cuts. And whatever they’re giving us, we have to make sure that we make them pay for it.”