Spartans pick up pace, cage Eagles in second half
RICHMOND – Coach Kevin Jermain had some simple advice for his Spartans at halftime as they held a 27-23 lead in their Feb. 5 meeting with visiting Holden.
“It wasn’t necessarily that we were not playing hard the first half; it was just that we weren’t focused on what we needed to do to get the game going in our direction,” Jermain said. “Like, we weren’t running good offense. … We just weren’t executing (our) defense how we’re supposed to. I just told them, … ‘All you gotta do is just do what we’re supposed to do and do it a lot better.’”
The Spartans responded with a 16-2 third-quarter run, and outscored Holden 40-16 the second half for a 67-39 Missouri River Valley Conference East Division and court-warming win.
“They did a good job of picking up the energy and executing … (on) both sides of the ball after … halftime,” Jermain said.
Juniors Layne Cavanah and Keyshaun Elliott – who led Richmond with 19 and 14 points, respectively – agreed.
“We knew we weren’t playing … to our…