Faith Academy boys hoops beats San Marcos Academy
CAPTION: Faith Academy senior forward Adam Merlick looks for an opening to the basket. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro
The Faith Academy of Marble Falls boys basketball team crushed San Marcos Academy 77-25 Jan. 28 in District 4-3A play of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools.
“It’s a big win and we’re thankful to have won the game,” Flames head coach Zakk Revelle said. “We felt like we owed them one in a way just because we didn’t think we played up to our standard at their place. And so we’re thankful to play the way that we played. We have to fix some things that we can do better at. We’ll just go to practice and hopefully be able to do that.”
Officials went to a running clock without about five minutes left in the third period. By then, Revelle had pulled the starters, allowing reserves to take over.
Faith led 26-4 after the opening stanza, 52-13 at the half, and 71-14 going into the fourth quarter.
Senior center Judah Phillips paced the Flames with 20 points followed by sophomore guard Jadyn Jenkins with 12, sophomore forward Hutton Lemberg scored 10, junior forward Seattle Hampton added nine, junior forward Michael Wetzel and sophomore guards Austin Skahill and Hudson Tatum each dropped in four, senior guard Jase Marshall and John Riley each contributed three, and junior forward Wade Dillard and junior center Collten Kohutek each finished with two.
“It’s a team game, and we understand that,” Revelle said. “And we want to always be doing that. Sometimes we’ve gotten away from that, and we don’t ever want to get away from that. But we had a game plan, which was that we were going to play our team game.”
But what made the first quarter scoring so intriguing is that Phillips scored only four points. The rest of the scoring came from Jenkins, who dropped in seven, Tatum and Hampton each added four, Marshall connected on a 3-pointer, and Lemberg and Skahill contributed two each.
How?
“A big part of it was our press,” the coach said. “We got out and ran, we got turnovers. But then, also on the flip side of that we also got stops. And we got the first rebound. We talk about it all the time – one and done one and done. The last time we played those guys, we gave up a bunch of extra possessions. We turned it over uncharacteristically and then we gave up a lot of rebounds that we honestly just shouldn’t have. We’re standing there and the ball goes over our heads. (In the rematch) we were able to get out and run.”
Once the Bears settled down in the second stanza, Phillips dropped in 12 of the Flames’ 26 points.
“And something else we talk about a lot is when teams are playing a zone, which they were all game, they’re not running back to a man – they’re running back to a spot,” Revelle said. “If you can push the pace, they’re not running and guarding you and you can end up in the paint and good things can happen. And so obviously that’s what happened. And we were thankful to be able to start the way we started.”
He commended his starters for building a lead and taking a seat to allow reserves to get the rest of the minutes.
“We were playing a lot of guys who typically don’t play together,” Revelle said. “We won the third quarter (19-1) playing a majority of those bench guys.”
Faith welcomes Austin San Juan Diego Saturday, Jan. 31, with the girls varsity playing at 2 p.m. and the boys varsity to follow. Before tip-off of the girls game, the academy will honor its senior basketball players at 1:45 p..
