MANSFIELD — The opening minutes of the second half didn’t play out as he had hoped, but St. Peter’s coach Joe Jakubick was in no position to complain after Thursday’s 47-34 win over Crestline at the Franciscan Activity Center.
The Spartans (3-2) coughed up a 21-15 halftime lead less than three minutes into the third quarter, but outscored the Bulldogs (0-3) 26-12 the rest of the way.
“We always talk about the first couple minutes of the second half. We wanted to come out and build on (the lead), but they hit a couple of 3s and all of a sudden we’re tied,” Jakubick said. “From that point, I felt we started running better offense and we started getting better shots.”
Nobody benefitted more from the improved ball movement than Adam Blunk. The senior scored all nine of his points in the second half.
“We got more people involved in scoring,” Jakubick said. “Adam scored nine points in the second half. We just got better balance.
“In the first half it was really just Michael Berick and then Mason (Campbell) would hit a shot here or there.”
A senior forward, Berick scored 12 of St. Peter’s 17 first-half points. He finished with a team-high 14.
“We weren’t trying to get the ball to me. The game plan was to play as a team,” Berick said. “We were running offense and trying to be patient.”
Crestline pulled even at 21-21 on a 3-pointer by senior Nate Coffman. The 6-foot-4 forward scored a game-high 15 points.
“He still ended up with 15, but I felt like we had to try to contain Coffman,” Jakubick said. “We had to make him work. The guys is a load.”
Crestline coach Colby Bright agreed.
“There’s not many guys that are his size, height and width. He’s going to be the guy we’re going to rely on all year,” Bright said. “We’ve just got to get it to him more and more and let it run through him.”
The Spartans led 32-27 after three quarters but began to pull away in the fourth. St. Peter’s outscored Crestline 15-7 in the final quarter to win going away.
“They would score and our heads would start sagging,” Bright said. “It was almost like we gave up.”
A freshman, Campbell backed Berick with 13 points for the Spartans. Ryan Payne added seven.
Codi Cooke and Tyler Albright each had five points for the Bulldogs.
Defense: In wins over South Central, Lucas and Crestline, the Spartans have held opponents to 43, 46 and 34 points, respectively. St. Peter’s allowed 53 and 62 points in its two losses.
“I feel like we’ve been pretty consistent with our defense all year, at least with our initial defense,” Jakubick said. “We’ve struggled sometimes giving teams second and third opportunities, which we did tonight a few times.
“I really feel our initial defense has been consistent but we have to finish the possession off.”
Growing Pains: Bright is in his first season as head coach at Crestline after replacing Steve Lyons. The Bulldogs were 3-20 each of the past two years.
“We’ve got to become mentally tougher,” Bright said. “We don’t deal with (adversity) very well. Things start to go bad and it just spirals out of control.
“We’re going to get there. They were 3-20 last year and 3-20 the year before. We’ve just got to start learning how to win basketball games.”
Learning a new system will take some time, Bright said.
“The thing that they’re struggling with right now is last year they didn’t run a lot of sets,” Bright said. “We’re running a lot of set and at times it’s like overload for them. They can’t keep it all straight.
“When they get that down and start executing at a higher level, we’ll be all right.”
Junior Varsity: St. Peter’s won the junior varsity game 57-24.
