SAN ANTONIO – Champion basketball coach Chris Adamek knew that his team’s best chance against the much taller Alamo Heights squad in Tuesday’s third-round playoff game was to hit some outside shots, while forcing the Mules to shoot long range and not let them get their inside game going.
Well, the plan worked close to perfection as the Chargers scored 33 points from long range and went on to defeat the Mules, 55-42.
Champion, 31-5, advances to the fourth round or regional semis where they faced Corpus Christi Veterans Memorial (26-11) on Friday. The winner of that game plays Saturday at 2 p.m. for the regional title against the winner of the C.C. Miller and San Antonio Veterans Memorial.
Entering Tuesday’s contest, Alamo Heights had a roster with 12 players 6-foot-1 or taller, including 6-foot-8, 6-foot-7, 6-foot-6, 6-foot-5 and two at 6-foot-4.
Adamek said he knew they couldn’t let the Mules get going on the inside, so they crowded the paint and forced them to shoot from the outside where they struggled.
“We were scared of their height, and they kind of got off to a bad start from the perimeter,” he said. “They struggled a little bit and we hit some shots early to get a little bit of a working margin.”
The Chargers never trailed and went up early at 8-0 on a pair of 3s from Braden Baum and one from Quinn Grable. Champion finished the first period by hitting 4 of 7 long-range shots and taking an 19-8 lead.
In the second quarter, the Chargers didn’t even attempt a 2-point shot and instead took nine 3s. They made 3 of them and outscored the Mules in the period, 9-8, for the 28-16 halftime lead.
At the break, the Chargers were 7 for 16 from long range and the Mules were 0 for 5.
“We didn’t hit at the percentage we were wanting to, but we hit just enough to get by,” Adamek said.
In that third quarter, Heights got their offense going and dropped in their first 3-pointer of the game. They outscored Champion in the period 14-8 and the lead was down to six at 36-30 by the time the final stanza started.
Charlie Georgelos said they knew the Mules were going to make a push at some point in the second half.
“When they played Wagner, they were down 12 at halftime and came back and won that game, so we knew they were going to get on a roll, we were expecting it,” he said. “We just had to hit the reset button and our team did that well, we kind of fixed it.”
The Chargers fixed it with a 10-2 spurt to open the fourth quarter and built the lead back up to 46-32. Baum and Mason Wyatt made the team’s only 3-point attempts in the stanza during that 10-2 spurt.
Trailing by double digits, the Mules had to start fouling to stop the clock and put the Chargers at the free-throw line. Champion responded by going 9 of 10 at the stripe and made its first eight FTs.
Heights made a couple of 3s in the fourth quarter but not enough to seriously cut into the lead. The Mules were 2 for 9 from 3-point range in that last period and finished the game 3 for 15 for 20 percent in 3-point shooting, while the Chargers were 11 for 25 for 44 percent.
Georgelos said it was fun beating their long-time rival on Tuesday.
“It’s super exciting, the schools have such a long history, our coach even has memories playing them so it’s like a historical kind of game for us,” he said. “We’re going to remember this game for the rest of our lives.”
Baum scored in all four quarters and led the team with 20 points, Wyatt added 11 and scored 9 in the fourth, including going 6 for 6 at the FT line, while Georgelos tallied 9 points, Grable 7, Dakarai Hodge 5 and Braden Burdick 3.
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