McCallie's basketball team excelled in just about every facet of the game Saturday, resulting in a 67-48 Division II-AA quarterfinal home victory over Pope John Paul II.
Defense set the tone for McCallie early in this one. The Blue Tornado (26-7) came out in a full-court zone press, which was effective in speeding up the Knights and causing them to turn the ball over and take bad shots. The Tornado forced five turnovers out of the press in the first quarter, keying a 20-2 scoring run to close it out.
"When we're pressing and we can get the opponent playing up-tempo, we feel we can cause some mistakes. When teams play wild against us, we like that, and that helped us with the run," McCallie coach John Shulman said.
McCallie took a 24-10 lead into the second quarter, where neither team could get much going offensively. PJP II (17-11) seemed more comfortable and took care of the basketball much better, and the Knights played tough defense. The score was 30-18 in favor of McCallie going into halftime, but it felt like the Knights were creeping back into the game.
In the third quarter the Knights gained a lot of excitement after an alley-oop dunk by Devan Cambridge. He missed the added free throw, but the score was 39-29 with two minutes left in the third quarter.
The fourth quarter was very high paced. The Knights implemented an aggressive full-court press that didn't turn out to be very effective. They surrendered a lot of easy breakaway layups and gave up 24 points in the quarter.
McCallie was able to get consistent offense from a variety of players throughout, while PJP II relied heavily on three guys.
McCallie point guard Jr. Clay scored a team-high 15 points and did a masterful job handling and distributing the basketball. Jay Gibson and Mac Hunt added 10 points each for the Blue Tornado.
The Knights' Devan Cambridge scored 15 points and stayed busy on defense and rebounding. Jason Cambridge tacked on 11 points, and Michael Anderson added 10.
"This is our 26th win. This is a McCallie team that has won more games than any other McCallie team in the past, and I'm really proud of our kids right now," Shulman said.
The Tornado will play Montgomery Bell Academy in the semifinals at Lipscomb on Thursday.
Contact Ted Bryant at sports@timesfreepress.com