MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Picking up right where it left off from last year’s state tournament, Chattanooga Prep looked impressively at ease on Tennessee’s biggest stage for high school hoops.
The Sentinels won their three games at last year’s BlueCross Basketball Championships by an average of 22 points to earn the program’s first state title, and they opened their time at this year’s tournament by clobbering Santa Fe 84-44 in Wednesday’s Class 1A quarterfinals at Middle Tennessee State University’s Murphy Center.
In a rematch of last year’s semifinal that Chatt Prep won by 11 (its closest margin in the tourney), the Sentinels made sure there would be no drama, never trailing in the game and dominating from the midpoint of the first quarter.
“There’s something in this atmosphere,” Sentinels second-year head coach Christian Collins said. “It’s a big stage, first round of the state tournament, and our kids may get anxious at times, but that’s the purpose of timeouts.
“Once we got them back acclimated to our game plan, we were good.”
The Sentinels (27-8) will face Humboldt (29-5) in Friday’s semifinals at 10:30 a.m. Eastern. The Vikings, who defeated North Greene 54-35 in Wednesday’s tournament opener, have won 19 straight games, including 13 by double digits.
Chatt Prep missed four shots in the paint (including three layups) in the first four minutes against Santa Fe (28-4), but the Sentinels began to pull away late in the first quarter when Cadence Collins and Romel Koon combined to make three consecutive 3-pointers.
“I’m proud of this young fellow,” Coach Collins said as he nodded toward his son, only a freshman but the team’s starting point guard. “He’s one of the few players that I don’t have to tell to get in the gym. He just goes consistently. He’s there before practice, after practice, and texting me wanting to get in the gym early in the morning.
“Hard work is undefeated. There’s no doubt in my mind that he can run the team. I’m confident in his abilities.”
Koon’s second 3 with just more than a minute left in the first quarter gave his team its first double-digit lead.
Collins, who was 3-for-4 from 3-point range while scoring a game-high 24 points, said that last year he “was a little nervous in this situation with the big crowd and bigger stage. But after all that, I’ve put in the work to take the type of shots I need to take. I put myself in those situations to come out and show and have more confidence in myself. Today, I was in the moment.”
Derrick Roberson added 14 points, eight rebounds, three assists and three blocked shots for the Sentinels, who wasted no time extending their early lead as a smothering defense forced nine second-quarter turnovers, leading to an 11-0 margin in fast-break points and a 17-3 scoring run to begin the second period.
Chatt Prep scored 12 of those 17 points from close range, outscored the Wildcats 22-4 in the paint in the first half, and grabbed 10 more rebounds than the Wildcats in the second quarter. The Sentinels also limited Santa Fe to just 4-of-29 (14%) shooting (including 0-of-7 from 3-point range) in the first half to take a 42-18 lead into the break.
Sentinels defenders were especially tough on Santa Fe’s Mr. Basketball award winner Auden Slaughter, who was just 2-of-16 from the field in the first half and finished 7-of-29 for 21 points.
“We remembered him from last year, so we wanted to apply pressure, pick him up full-court, make him work and feel uncomfortable,” Coach Collins said. “We know he plays almost the whole game. We did a good job of wearing him down and got him gassed a little bit.
“The way I set the schedule, we played some 5A schools out of Georgia and Florida, and some top-ranked teams in Tennessee. Our boys matched up pretty well with all of them. Some parents were upset with me for how I planned the schedule, but I believe iron sharpens iron. If you’re going to be the best, you’ve got to play the best, and today it showed.”
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com.