Martin cruised to an easy 66-25 Southwest Athletic Conference triumph over Lawrence Friday night, despite not scoring a point in the fourth and final quarter.
The Clippers led 24-7, 48-15 and 66-22 at the close of the first three periods. The running clock was turned on in the third quarter.
“We put our starters on the bench for the entire fourth quarter with the exception of our point guards,” explained coach David Curry. “We alternated them so we could keep our offense moving and they did a great job of keeping the offense flowing. We had some opportunities to score, but just didn’t connect on them.”
The festive evening also included the Winter Homecoming.
Freshman Cayden Curry hit a three from the sideline to open the contest and Lawrence responded with a two-pointer. That was the closest that Lawrence would get for the remainder of the night. The Clippers went on to outscore the Tigers by a 21-5 margin to finish the quarter up 24-7. Twelve of those 21 points came off of three-point shots.
They then opened the second with four straight threes and Lawrence added one of its own to make the score 36-10.
“From there we just worked the ball around to add eight more before the half as Lawrence was able to add a bucket of their own, which gave us a 48-15 lead at the break,” Curry said. “We told the kids in the locker room to continue playing great defense, slow the tempo down and get at least five or six passes into our offense. There was no need for us to keep the pedal down.
“The kids did exactly what we asked and did a great job of being patient with the ball and capitalizing on the defense’s mistakes,” he added. “Lawrence had trouble with our defensive pressure and we held them scoreless until there was about three minutes left in the quarter.”
Lawrence was forced into 22 turnovers for the evening.
“I was very pleased with our defense tonight,” the coach said. “They were where they were supposed to be for most of the night. When you get a lead like that by halftime, it is easy for a team to not come out with as much intensity after half, and we didn’t do that. Our defense tends to set the tone for us, and tonight our defense was outstanding.
“Offensively we did a much better job of taking care of the ball and kept our turnovers down to a respectable number. We shot 60% from the field, and 64% from behind the arc. Anytime a team can shoot that well, they are going to be hard to beat. It is definitely the best we have shot to this point in the year.”
Cayden Curry and Carter Hilton both had 18 points to lead Martin and Tanner Curry had 14 and Andrew Boss eight. Cayden Curry collected nine rebounds and Tanner Curry had eight.
The Clippers will be host to Kalamazoo Christian on Tuesday and travel to Decatur on Friday for another divisional match up. They are now 9-6 overall and 6-1 in their SAC division.
