ROCHESTER - Playing Tippecanoe Valley in Tuesday's first semifinal game of the Winning Edge Holiday Tournament, Kyle Sanders and Josh Risner were certainly the winning combination for Knox.
Sanders, a 6-foot-6 senior, and Risner, a 6-4 junior, dominated play inside and combined to score all of Knox's points as the Redskins beat the Vikings 45-40 in a game that was more lopsided than the final score indicated.Sanders, who scored eight of the Redskins' 10 first-quarter points, finished with a game-high 29 points, while Risner scored 16 points.
"We had a stretch this season where I thought our guards were shooting too much," said Knox coach Todd Boldry. "We talked about that in practice. Apparently they listened."
The Redskins - or more realistically, Sanders and Risner - scored all of their points 12 feet from the basket or closer, and the majority of them were easy buckets in the paint.
Veteran Tippecanoe Valley coach Bill Patrick said Boldry's gameplan wasn't a suprise, just that the much-shorter Vikings didn't have an answer to the Redskins' size advantage.
"We didn't do a good job on them," Patrick said of Sanders and Risner. "They probably threw the lob pass six times and scored on it. It wasn't a surprise they went to the two big guys, we just didn't recognize things. We didn't do a good job on them, and it was a little tough giving up that much size."
While Knox dominated play inside, Valley scored its points on jump shots.
Senior Taylor Burkhart led the Vikings with 20 points, while freshman Nick Kindig added eight points.
Junior Gus Lukens scored five points for the Vikings, senior Zach Owens chipped in with four points, and sophomore Bret Cooper and senior Anthony Tolson rounded out Valley's scoring with two points and a free throw, respectively.
With its fifth-straight loss, Valley fell to 2-6 on the season. The Vikings will play Winamac (2-6) in today's consolation game at 6 p.m.
Knox, which improved to 5-2, will play the host Rochester Zebras (4-3) in today's 8 p.m. championship game.
Rochester advanced with a 54-40 win over Winamac in Tuesday's second semifinal game.
One of Knox's two losses this season was to Valley, as the Vikings beat the host Redskins 45-44 on Dec. 4.
In that game, Sanders scored 17 points, while Risner added 10.
"It was the same kind of game," Boldry said when asked about the difference between Tuesday's win and the Dec. 4 loss. "We just did a better job this time of not letting them beat us in the end."
In the previous meeting, Knox led by nine with seven minutes to play.
Valley senior Jordan Littlejohn scored in the paint as time expired to give the Vikings the one-point win.
In tournament play at Rochester Tuesday, Knox led 37-21 in the third quarter.
The Vikings went on a 9-0 run to close the gap before an old-fashioned three-point play by Sanders gave the Redskins a 40-30 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
Valley scored the first five points of the fourth quarter, a three-pointer from Kindig and a bucket from Lukens, but Knox scored the next five points to push the lead back to 10 points.
"We knew they wouldn't go away," Boldry said of the Vikings. "Offensively, (Taylor) Burkhart stepped up for them. We focused on Owens and Tolson."
