By RICK SPRUNGER
Blackhawk Christian came calling on Norwell Saturday night, and stayed long enough to deliver a convincing demonstration on why it is the defending Class 2A champion and currently ranked No. 2 in that class.
The Braves overwhelmed Norwell by a startling 72-36 margin in a game that was largely over two minutes into the second quarter.
It was the most one-sided margin of defeat suffered by a Norwell team since Marion laid a 100-64 smackdown on the Knights during the 1998 season some 26 years ago.
Blackhawk, of course, is an exceptionally talented team.
The Braves have size, speed, and shooting ability to burn, and they showed the Knights all of those things in spades Saturday night.
The size comes in the form of Kellen Pickett, a 6-9 junior, who averages 22 points and 12 rebounds per game and was the leading scorer in last year’s Class 2A championship game win over Linton.
He has reportedly already been offered by Central Florida, Toledo, Purdue-Fort Wayne, and Valparaiso, and he still has another year to play at this level.
“If you’ve ever wondered what a Division 1 kid looks like, this is it,” said a wowed Norwell coach Mike McBride of Blackhawk’s heart and soul. “He does everything well.”
Against Norwell, he only scored 12 points but grabbed 18 rebounds, blocked at least one shot, and altered countless others.
“He is so talented that he is able to make his teammates better just by his presence on the floor,” continued McBride. “We were having to collapse our defense down on him.”
And that just left his sniper teammates free to roam at will in undefended territory.
“They shot really well from outside early, much better than what we saw in their game films,” said McBride.
Blackhawk connected on an eye-popping 13 of 29 three-point shots for the game, seven of them in a blistering first-half attack that saw the Braves hit on 13 of 24 shots overall (.542) in surging to a 34-19 advantage.
Bryce Sefton was the author of four of those long-range bullseyes in his first four tries, all of them in the first half.
Blackhawk made an authoritative good-morning, good-afternoon, good-night statement right off the bat in the game’s first four minutes.
Will Guthrie started things off with a 17-foot jumper just 16 seconds into the contest. And then came back-to-back midcourt steals by Sefton and Aiden Muldoon on Norwell’s first two possessions.
“They came at us with a lot of energy,” observed McBride later.
Then it was Muldoon’s turn to shine.
He nailed a three-pointer, got another midcourt steal with an upcourt feed to Pickettt for a fast-break basket, then dropped a 15-footer.
Sefton hit his first three-pointer moments later, driving McBride to a timeout with 4:06 left in the quarter.
What his team had to show for those first four minutes were three live-ball turnovers, five one-and-done misses from the field, and a 12-0 deficit.
The Knights emerged from the huddle and made a counter-rally, scoring seven straight points on a Cade Shelton bucket over Pickett underneath; a steal, layup, and three-point play by Kaedyn Quintanilla; and a Shelton drive through the lane.
But another Sefton three-pointer gave Blackhawk a 15-7 lead at the break.
And the Braves then started the second quarter the same way they had started the first, with back-to-back midcourt steals in the first 30 seconds of the period.
Sefton got the first one and fed Pickett upcourt for a one-on-nobody two-handed slam; Muldoon got the other and fired an outlet pass to a speeding Isaac Smith for another uncontested bunny.
That earned another timeout from a fired-up McBride.
“We didn’t handle their defensive intensity very well,” said the coach in clipped tones. “We weren’t sprinting back on defense, and we can’t have that.”
It got worse.
Three consecutive three-pointers, the first two by Sefton and the third by Smith sandwiched around a lone pair of free throws by Adam McBride ballooned the margin to 28-9.
Norwell was never closer than 11 points after that, trailed by that 15-point margin at halftime, and played the second half with mostly bench reserves.
As impressed as the elder McBride was with Blackhawk, he was decidedly less than that with his own band of warriors.
“We did not have three good days of practice this week (since the Dwenger game on Tuesday), which is surprising since we were coming off of three straight wins,” he said evenly, choosing his words carefully. “We did not have good energy; we did not have good execution.”
Blackhawk placed four players in double figures paced by Smith with 21 points, including five three-pointers; Muldoon with 15 on 6-for-8 shooting and three treys; Sefton with 14; and Pickett’s 12.
The Braves were 26-for-51 for a .51 shooting percentage for the game, outrebounded the Knights, 36-26, and committed just eight turnovers despite playing racehorse basketball all night, two of them by subs in the game’s final minute.
Adam McBride was the only Norwell player in double figures with 13 points. No one else scored more than six.
The Knights were 13-for-50 from the floor for a chilly .260.
Norwell won the junior varsity scrap, 46-33.
Nick McBride scored 18 points to lead the Knights. Brady Smith added seven, Garry Riley six, Caiden Petrie and Drew Jolly five each, Noah Comer three, and Will Case two.
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BLACKHAWK CHRISTIAN 72, NORWELL 36
at Norwell
BLACKHAWK CHRISTIAN (2-1): Aiden Muldoon 6-8 0-0 15, Kellen Pickett 4-9 3-4 12, Isaac Smith 8-14 0-0 21, Bryce Sefton 4-7 2-2 14, Will Guthrie 2-2 0-0 4, Jackson Hauser 0-5 2-2 2, Luke Mansfield 0-1 0-0 0, Christian Webster 1-3 0-0 2, Brennan Miller 0-0 0-0 0, Ben Gray 0-1 0-0 0, Sam Schwartz 0-0 0-0 0, Jaeden O’Neal 1-1 0-0 2. TOTAL: 26-51 7-8 72.
NORWELL (3-2): Cade Shelton 2-6 0-0 4, Adam McBride 4-13 2-3 13, Owen Wallis 2-5 0-0 5, Cohen Bailey 0-3 0-0 0, Ashton Federspiel 1-5 0-0 2, Kaedyn Quintanilla 2-8 1-1 6, Trace Moser 1-2 1-2 3, Brady Smith 0-3 0-0 0, Caiden Petrie 0-1 0-0 0, Garry Riley 0-0 0-0 0, Nick McBride 1-4 0-0 3, Ryne Thornton 0-0 0-0 0. TOTAL: 13-50 4-6 36.
Blackhawk 15 19 18 20 — 72
Norwell 7 12 11 6 — 36
Three-point shooting: Blackhawk Christian 13-29 (Muldoon 3-4, Pickett 1-4, Smith 5-9, Sefton 4-7, Hauser 0-2, Mansfield 0-1, Webster 0-2), Norwell 6-25 (Shelton 0-1, A. McBride 3-9, Wallis 1-4, Bailey 0-3, Quintanilla 1-2, Smith 0-2, Petrie 0-1, N. McBride 1-3). Rebounds: Blackhawk Christian 36 (Pickett 18, Muldoon 7), Norwell 26 (Shelton 5, A. McBride 5). Turnovers: Blackhawk Christian 8, Norwell 12. Personal fouls: Blackhawk Christian 9, Norwell 9. Fouled Out: None. Technical fouls: None.
Junior Varsity: Norwell 46, Blackhawk Christian 33.
