OLNEY - The Olney Central basketball team started their season 2-0 after wins over Quakerdale Prep & McHenry County this past weekend during the Richland County Rotary Classic.
Olney Central (88) Quakerdale Prep (69) - Friday, November 1
The Blue Knights managed to put away a scrappy & much improved Quakerdale Prep team 88-69 on Friday night inside The Dungeon on Gene Duke Court. Olney Central forced Quakerdale to commit 23 turnovers on the night and controlled the glass 45 to 37. The Blue Knights held a 10-point lead going into halftime (44-34). Sophomore guard Jalen Moore extended the lead (57-43) for the Blue Knights after connecting on 2 free throws on a technical foul was called on Quakerdale Prep. Trey Drummond and Lateef Johnson from Quakerdale responded with a buckets of their own on back-to-back possessions to cut the lead back to 10. Freshman forward Cobie Montgomery responded with one of his (3) three pointers to extend the lead to 13-points. Quakerdale responded with an assisted layup from Drummond to Tim Burnom.
The Blue Knights and Eagles traded buckets for the majority of the second half until freshman forward Jordan Tchuente connected on a three pointer from the top of the key followed by a block on the other end. Tchuente then assisted on a three by freshman guard Tucker Hayes and then Jalen Moore followed that up with a run out layup to give the Blue Knights a 7-0 run and force the Eagles to call time-out. A few possessions later freshman forward JJ Kalakon connected on a fadeaway jump shot from the corner on a pass from Moore. Olney Central then used the clock to their advantage and controlled the last four minutes of the game to seal the victory.
Olney Central was lead in scoring by the Louisville, Kentucky duo of Cobie Montgomery (19) & JJ Kalakon (19). Jalen Moore finished with 15, freshman CE Talton 9, sophomore Nick Walker 8, freshman forward Jordan Tchuente 5, sophomore guard JT Wheeler 4, freshman guards Cayman Hayes & Tucker Hayes 4, and freshman forward Elijah Farr 2. Overall the Blue Knights shot 44 percent from the field (35-79) and 29 percent from deep (9-31). They finished shooting 69 percent (9-13) from the free throw line.
Olney Central (124) McHenry County (79) - Saturday, November 2
The Blue Knights turned around and played McHenry County less than twenty four hours later and won 124-79. The Blue Knights saw everyone in the scorebook including 6 players finishing with double figures - Jalen Moore (22), Nick Walker (20), JT Wheeler (14), Elijah Farr (13 - all in the first half), CE Talton (13), & Joseph Dalton (12). Olney Central controlled the game the entire way leading McHenry County by 20 points at half 65-45. The Blue Knights shot 49 percent overall from the floor (42-85) and 44% from deep (14-32). They also finished 26-33 from the free throw line for 79%. Olney Central took care of the basketball only committing 6 turnovers for the game.
The Blue Knights scoring was rounded out by Cobie Montgomery 9, Cayman Hayes 7, Tucker Hayes 6, DJ Haynes 4, JJ Kalakon 2, & Jordan Tchuente 2.
Olney Central plays Indiana Elite Prep at home on Tuesday, November 5 at 7:30pm.
Head Coach Mike Burris on the weekend - "We want to thank everyone for making the Richland County Rotary Classic a success once again. We look forward to hosting the Rotary Classic in the future and couldn't do that without the support from our community. We shot the ball extremely well this weekend which was good for us to see the ball go in the hole. Our guys are continuing to put in extra work outside of practice and it really showed on Saturday afternoon with a quick turn around. We will continue to work on the things that we need to get cleaned up but our overall energy and togetherness was fun to watch. Our guys played extremely hard and competed."