East Canton 63, Windham 49

I am not a professional writer (I only use big words to give that appearance). The Rep sent someone out to the game last night who actually gets paid to write. So treat yourself to a real story.

http://www.cantonrep.com/highschool/x1090817159/East-Canton-is-11-0-for-the-first-time-after-topping-Windham
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Tidbits
The leading scorer for the Hornets was Burfield with 22, including 5 3-pointers. Watching him hold his follow through after a nothing-but-netter, I can't help but think about the saying my parents would say to me when I made an ugly face as a child: “If you make that face too long, it's going to get stuck like that.” Ryan, I love watching you hold your follow through after a stroke to reaffirm your shooting superiority to all the rest of us, but please don't get stuck like that. We've already had too many injury scares.

The JV team got another win, beating Windham 55-47. Scoring for the Hornets was Shultz and Taylor with 14 and Whitacre with 13. If the varsity keeps winning, stories in the newspapers will start to be a regular thing. That means I won't have to write the story lines for the varsity, having the luxury of only giving my insight. Maybe the JV will get a little more love with less time being spent describing the varsity...

Windham didn't have their varsity coach for the game last night. He was ejected during the JV game for reasons I'm not sure of. Who has details on this?

The Hornets really rely heavily on 3-point shooting. Through 11 games, East Canton has made 18 more 3-pointers than their opponents. They have made 69 total, a 6.27 per game average. However, no two man group of Hornets can beat the coaches in a 3-point shoot out.

I'm wagging my finger at the East Canton student section. I found it silly for East Canton's student body to even engage the Windham faithful. Hornet fans traded chants with a traveling group of about 1 ½ rows of students. Be loud, creative, inspiring, and all that but don't feel the need to overpower a weaker group just because you can. You look more like a bully than anything else. I know you have never cheered for an 11-0 team before, but sometimes you got to be a snob. Now that I'm done criticizing, who has pictures of the white out I can post? Send em to eastcantonhive@gmail.com

Recap: East Canton 74, Windham 51 (Or, The Night The Whistles Never Stopped)

Undoubtedly there were three stars in Fridays game, none of which scored a point. The men in stripes took center stage from beginning to end. To their credit, they were consistent all night. However, on this occasion, consistency meant calling fouls early and often. A total of 60 fouls were called throughout the game, 27 on East Canton and the remaining 33 on Windham. All these fouls led to 73 free throws and an undeniably slow game.

Both teams were constantly scrambling to make substitutions to protect their foul plagued personnel. At the half, with East Canton leading 29-21, East Cantons foul dilemma broke down like this:

Cartwright, Slater and Smith (all seniors) had 3 fouls before even the 3:00 minute mark of the second period. Elseser and Stu Campbell also had 2 fouls

During the 3rd period East Canton started to break the game open. They stretched out their lead to between 15-20 points for the majority of the quarter. The most entertaining part of the game to me, an anxious spectator waiting for the two teams to go up and down the court twice without a foul call, came when a player for Windham got off their bench, made a straight line for their locker room, proceeded to not make it into the locker room before he got sick and threw up all over the baseline and padded wall, and then slipped and fell in his own bile. A five minute delay ensued for the mess to be cleaned up. I almost enjoyed this break in action because it simply broke the monotony of refs controlling the game by calling an endless supply of fouls.

After the clean up, play continued but several players slipped and fell in the same spot the mess had been made. At this point, the refs began to feel upstaged by the slippery court and went back to calling even more fouls.

Going into the 4th quarter, East Canton had four players with 4 fouls. And as you can see, Windham was whistled for more fouls than East Canton so you can only imagine what their substitution limitations were. But despite the foul trouble, East Cantons killer instinct set in and put the game out of reach. They cruised to victory, 74-51.

Leading scorers for East Canton: Bradley 21, Smith 18, and Burfield 12

The JV rolled to another win, topping Windhams JV 46-37. The East Canton JV is 2-0 in this young season. Leading the way in scoring in the win was Brandon Shultz with 12 and Justin Whitacre and Aaron Kennedy with 9 each

Bits of Randomness

Sophomores Duke Taylor and Aaron Kennedy got into their first varsity basketball game and Taylor scored his first two varsity points of his high school career

With all the fouls and foul trouble, Brandon Slater was the only Hornet to foul out. Deflation level was very minimal

The leading scorer for Windham was their elusive PG Rico Hall with 12 points

Smith was an absolute beast on the boards. I'm not sure what his rebound count was but it was impressive to watch

Zell Bradley attempted 19 free throws, converting only 11
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Canton Rep game capsules for 12/11
http://www.cantonrep.com/highschool/x2010179745/High-school-boys-basketball-results-for-Dec-11

Canton Rep game box scores for 12/11
http://www.cantonrep.com/highschool/x1769698179/High-school-boys-basketball-box-scores-for-Dec-11