Central outshoots Knox for men’s basketball win

PELLA—Central College rained in 14 3-point goals in its first men’s basketball home-court appearance of the season and outscored Knox College (Ill.) 88-66 Friday.

Guard Kade Terrell (5th-year, Montrose, Colo.) knocked down five treys and had a game-high 18 points for the Dutch (4-3), who used a 10-0 first-half run to build a 39-29 lead at the break. Central then opened the second half with 11 unanswered points and pushed its lead to 72-42 with 9:09 left. Coach Joe Steinkamp emptied the bench soon thereafter.

Knox (1-4) put a good share of its defensive attention on center Joshua Van Gorp (junior, Pella, Pella Christian HS). That opened up the perimeter for other scoring options.

“I thought Knox did a really good job of making it difficult to get inside and really sold out, with extreme help, double-teams and fronting the post,” Steinkamp said. “I think that led to our guard getting a lot of wide-open shots. Teams are going to do that; find different ways to try to take those easy points in the paint away. But our guys did a great job of sharing the ball with 27 assists. It’s really fun to see us pass like that.”

Guard Caleb Brand (junior, Mount Vernon) hit a pair of threes and had 12 points and guard Sam Beatty (senior, Mount Pleasant) had 10 points in just 10 minutes of action that included a crowd-pleasing dunk.

But Steinkamp was also impressed, once again, by 6-foot-10 forward Grant Johnson’s (senior, Waukee, Van Meter HS) line. He had just five points but blocked five shots, had five rebounds, passed out seven assists and had two steals.

“He’s a stat stuffer,” Steinkamp said. “He’s so good at the rim, forcing a lot of tough shots and then rebounding. And then that starts our transition game. I thought we played excellent transition. Guys really flew down the court.”

Point guard Drew Edwards (senior, Eden Prairie, Minn.) also caught Steinkamp’s eye with eight assists and six rebounds.

“I thought Drew had a great all-around game as well,” he said. “He’s running our transition game and gets us playing fast. And he actually guarded their leading scorer (fifth-year guard Jordan Rayner) tonight. (Rayner) was averaging 17 points a game coming in and tonight he had just five and Drew was a big reason why.”

Van Gorp had eight points, seven rebounds and two blocks.

Central outshot Knox 50.0% to 38.2% and hit 41.2% from 3-point range. The Dutch held a 43-27 rebounding advantage.

Central opens American Rivers play Wednesday against Nebraska Wesleyan University with a women’s-men’s doubleheader at Lincoln, Nebraska. The men’s contest starts at 7:30 p.m. Nebraska Wesleyan is 1-4 after dropping an 82-74 decision Friday to North Central University (Minn.). Two of the Prairie Wolves’ losses were against nationally ranked foes. Nebraska Wesleyan threw a scare into the No. 3-rated University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh last Saturday before tumbling 63-57.

“They’re a completely different style of team than we’ve played all year,” Steinkamp said. “They’ve been playing mostly zone. So we’ll start tomorrow getting ready for two big conference games.”

The Dutch are at home against the University of Dubuque next Saturday.

Posted by on Nov 25 2022. Filed under College Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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