For nearly 10 minutes of the final boys' semifinal Friday night at the Times Free Press Best of Preps basketball tournament, Baylor's defense looked like the hoops version of the 1985 Chicago Bears.
The Red Raiders held Brainerd to three points during a large span of the first half, more than enough time for the offense to come around as Baylor rolled to a 61-38 win at Chattanooga State. The win sets up the season's first Baylor-McCallie matchup in tonight's championship game, which is set for 8:30.
"We got into a good groove defensively from the start, and we finally started running the offense a little better as the game went on," winning coach Austin Clark said. "I'm really proud of the effort, and I thought we stayed focus on what we were trying to do.
"We knew they were a great penetrating team, so we tried to make sure everybody was in gap position to help with the penetrating, and we did a really good job of that."
Baylor's helping zone defense forced eight turnovers by Brainerd (10-3) in the first period, but the Red Raiders (6-2) had their own problems scoring, leading only 10-9 after one period. The Panthers' fortunes took a turn for the worse 30 seconds into the second period when star Joseph Norwood went down with a leg injury.
Though he would return later, Baylor put together a killing 15-0 run over the next five minutes. Freshman Randy Brady started the surge with a hard drive, and Boris Ristanovic followed by tipping in a missed free throw before Lorenzo White drilled a 3-pointer for a 19-9 lead.
Senior Patrick Urey, playing in just his second game after recovering from a broken hand, finished the run with a three-point play as the lead grew to 16. The advantage was 17 points two minutes into the second half when Brainerd made a brief run, with Norwood slashing his way for five points as the Panthers creeped within 12.
Urey, though, nailed a 3-pointer to silence the spurt, and the Red Raiders closed the quarter on a 10-4 run to lead by 20.
"We're still trying to get our legs under us, but we're at the point where we are ready to start competing with everybody and tomorrow it should be a good test with McCallie," said Urey, who had 12 points off the bench.
"The rivalry means a lot. Off the court we're all pretty good friends with one another, but on the court it's always a battle. There are no secrets at all between us, and we'll be ready to go after it tomorrow."
Hendricks led Baylor with 14 points, with Brady adding 11 to go with seven rebounds and three of the team's nine steals. Norwood scored 11 points to lead Brainerd, which will play Van Buren in today's third-place game, set for 5:30 p.m.
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6296. Follow him on Twitter @youngsports22.