C-M too much for Wash High
CANONSBURG – On most nights, when Canon-McMillan point guard Britton Beachy isn’t making shots, the Big Macs’ offense is going to have a hard time executing.
Saturday night wasn’t one of those nights.
Beachy, C-M’s leading returning scorer, didn’t make a single shot from the floor, but it didn’t matter very much as the Big Macs found plenty of secondary scoring in a 78-63 victory over Wash High in the final game of the Brian Anselmino Memorial Tip-off Tournament.
“When we make at least three passes we are going to get a wide open shot,” said Canon-McMillan coach Rick Bell. “We are trying to play faster. We have other guys to step up and we moved the ball and knocked down some shots tonight.”
Big Macs’ forward RJ Bell keyed a 19-7 second-quarter run with a trio of three-point shots that broke open a tight game and sent C-M into the locker room with a 41-28 lead.
Canon-Mac never looked back from there.
It wasn’t just Bell who had success at the offensive end for the Big Macs as four C-M players finished in double figures. Carson Miller led the way with 23 points while Bell (19), Jake Davey (16) and Jordan Smith also finished in double figures.
While Beachy scoring only six points, all from the free-throw line, he did a great job as a facilitator in finding open shooters all night.
“Britton came up through our youth system as a point guard,” said Bell. “While he played off the ball some the past couple of years, I have total confidence in him making the right decisions with the ball in his hands. Teams know him now and he is going to be priority No. 1 for other teams to game plan against. He is smart enough to know when to shoot and when to get the ball to his teammates.”
C-M extended its lead to more than 20 throughout much of the third quarter, before Wash High showed a little bit of fight.
Jordan Swart made back-to-back three-point shots and Matt Popeck made three consecutive field goals to get the Prexies to within 60-53.
But Miller provided a couple of daggers for Canon-Mac with consecutive three-pointers to extend the lead back to double digits.
Popeck did his best to keep Wash High in the game with a game-high 34 points, but the Prexies had plenty of problems finding secondary scoring.
“Attitude and effort can take you a long way,” said Wash High coach Ron Faust. “At the end of the game, we finally found five players who had both of those things and we started to look a lot better.”
A big part of the win for C-M was free-throw shooting. While the Big Macs did not perform well from the line Friday in their opener, they were tremendous Saturday, making 22 of 25 attempts.
“We talked a lot about it before the game,” Bell said. “We have guys who can make them.”