NOBLESVILLE— Columbus North’s Blake Barker and Nicholas Schiavello combined for 37 points against Andrean in the first round of the boys basketball Noblesville Holiday Tournament on Thursday.
Barker knocked down three 3-pointers on his way to scoring a team-high 19 points in the 62-52 win over the Fighting 59ers. The Bull Dogs never trailed at any point. They advanced to play Noblesville at 10 a.m. today.
Schiavello, who finished with 18 points and four rebounds, scored more than half of North’s points in the opening quarter. He had nine of the team’s 16 points and Barker had five of the other seven points.
“I think I just came in with a lot of confidence,” Schiavello said. “My teammates got me the ball in places I can score. I was playing aggressive. We moved the ball well. When everyone is touching it and we’re moving the ball well, we all get kind of in a rhythm and just made some shots.”
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Barker took over in the second quarter by scoring nine of the team’s 13 points. Schiavello and Barker scored 25 of North’s 29 points in the first two quarters and finished with 60 percent of the team’s total points.
Barker credited his big second quarter to the fact that his defender was playing him up close.
“I felt like I could get past them pretty easily whenever they get up on me,” Barker said. “My teammates fed me the ball and that really helped. I just really wanted to pull away there. I felt like we were better them and I really felt like I could get to the basket.”
North pulled away with a 13-point lead after starting the second quarter on a 9-0 run. Andrean ended the quarter with a 6-0 run to cut the Bull Dogs lead to 29-24 at the half.
North coach Paul Ferguson decided to go with his pressure trap defense for much of the game. It’s a defense he said the Bull Dogs don’t use all of the time, but will go with occasionally. The trap defense coupled with the offensive execution help North keep an eight-point lead heading into the fourth quarter.
“I thought there were a few times where it really turned the momentum of the game,” Ferguson said of the defense. “We got some key steals, got some offense out of our defense and we thought there were opportunities to trap some of their guards and that proved to be true.”
North never let the Fighting 59ers get closer than six points in the final quarter. Kyle Ross led Andrean with 15 points and nine rebounds.
