Burlington Central rolls over Sycamore
Michael Pearson put the exclamation mark on the beginning of the 2018 portion of Burlington Central's season Tuesday night.
The 6-foot-4, 275-pound center stepped back and let a 3-pointer fly in the closing seconds against Sycamore. The shot found nothing but net, capping a 77-36 victory on a night that Zach Schutta, Michael Kalusa and company also were red-hot.
It was Pearson's shot, however, that drew the biggest roar from the Rockets' crowd.
"Everyone goes crazy when he hits a 3," junior Patrick Mayfield said. "It's so fun to see everyone get so hyped."
Pearson took a feed from Adam Finstein and nailed the 3-pointer, his second in a varsity game.
"Sometimes I make them in practice," Pearson said. "It's about 50-50. It was good hearing the crowd go crazy after."
The Burlington Central fans had plenty to cheer about all night. The Rockets opened the game on a 20-3 run, with Schutta, Kalusa and William Hough all making a pair of baskets.
After the Spartans scored 9 straight, Burlington Central closed the first half on a 24-3 spree to open a 45-15 halftime lead. Schutta scored 14 points in the half, Mayfield 12 and Kalusa 8.
Schutta, the MVP of the Rockets' Plano Christmas Classic championship, is closing in on the school scoring record. Coach Brett Porto said Schutta is on pace to get the record in late January.
"We look for him to score in different ways whether it's second chances, steals, post-ups, 3s," Porto said. "We consider him a scorer and not just a shooter."
Burlington Central (11-2) ended 2017 by winning the Plano title in a low-scoring, 44-39 overtime win over Peoria Notre Dame on Saturday.
Everyone enjoyed getting back to their up-tempo style Tuesday.
"That was definitely a different style of basketball," Mayfield said of Saturday's win. "We would play defense for a whole minute and a half and we'd be tired. I thought we played great tonight. I feel we didn't play our best games at Plano but we still came out winning. We came back tonight to what we do."
Schutta and the rest of the starters only played about five minutes in the second half. He finished with 18 points, Mayfield scored 14 and Jayvon Johnson and Kalusa both had 8.
The Rockets have won 8 straight games.
"That first half the usual suspects turned defense into offense and those guys hit some shots too to open it up," Porto said. "I think it was good to go against that matchup zone (from Peoria Notre Dame) and that grind-out tempo they play. Today we were kind of worried because it was such an emotional game in the championship and coming back with a quick turnaround so I was really pleased with the way we came out in the first quarter."
Grant McConkey led Sycamore (1-9) with 12 points.