NEW MARKET — Southmont churned out its best defensive performance of the season in a 57-29 win over Seeger on Friday night.
“When I first got into coaching Chuck Hutchins was the varsity coach at Attica and he had something that was called the 44 club,” Southmont coach Jake Turner, who succeeded Hutchins at Attica in 2015, said. “Basically if you hold a team to 44 or below, you’re going to win a lot of games. To hold that team under 30, I told the guys it means they embraced that defensive mindset and embraced that grind and I was really proud of that defensive effort.”
Southmont (4-3) led wire-to-wire, going up 11-4 after a quarter and leading 26-15 at the half. Logan Oppy knocked down a pair of 3-pointers, scoring 11 of his team-high 18 points in the second period. The Mounties blew things open in the third quarter, behind Avery Saunders scoring eight of his 15 points to take a 44-21 lead heading into the final stanza.
“That’s the beauty of our team, is we have a multitude of guys who can score and be our leading scorer,” Turner said. “This is probably Logan’s season-high. Logan shot the ball well, and I was happy to see that. Austin (Bowman, 7 points) scored for us in the first half, Avery was kind of consistent throughout the game, and Carson (Chadd) kind of poured it on there at the end.”
Carson Chadd reached double-figures with 12 points, including eight in the fourth quarter. Chadd, Oppy, and Saunders combined for a 16-of-20 shooting performance, as the Mounties knocked down 20-of-35 shots for the game and 12-of-18 in the second half.
At the other end, defense stood out for Southmont — holding Seeger (3-4) to 11-of-43 shooting, including just four second half field goals. Leading scorer Owen Snedeker was held to four points, while Drew Holland led the Patriots with seven points off the bench.
Southmont takes its three-game winning streak to Crawfordsville tonight.
“Hopefully the guys are learning, and it’s good for them to learn from their mistakes, but tomorrow we’re going to have to make those adjustments really quick, because we are going to face a really good basketball team. We can’t have lulls where we turn the ball over or aren’t focused in defensively, because Crawfordsville can really score and they’re going to be ready to go.”
