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Undefeated and boasting the title of No. 1 team in the country, the Grace men’s basketball team welcomed perhaps its biggest test yet to the Manahan Orthopaedic Capital Center on Wednesday night and passed it with flying colors. The Lancers dominated visiting No. 3 Bethel for all 48 minutes, cruising to a wire-to-wire 99-81 win.
The two teams couldn’t have started the game on further ends of the spectrum. It didn’t take long at all for Grace to get into a rhythm, as the team shared the ball and found open looks en route to taking an early 5-0 lead. Bethel, on the other hand, could not get into any sort of rhythm at all. The Pilots struggled mightily on offense in the early going, even putting up a pair of airballs on their first two perimeter shots.
At the game’s first media timeout, five minutes into the contest, the Lancers held a 9-3 lead and would be going to the foul line for one more after the break. Bethel was still searching for its first field goal as Grace was suffocating the visitors on both ends of the court. The early edge in this top-five matchup belonged to the No. 1 team in the land.
Five straight points by the team’s leading scorer Ian Raasch extended the lead to double digits just six minutes into the contest. The Pilots, entering this game averaging over 92 points a game entering this one, had just five after seven minutes of play. On both ends of the court, the home side was controlling the game.
Outside of the team’s lightning quick, selfless brand of basketball, perhaps the most impressive aspect of the Lancers’ game was how deep the team went. Head coach Scott Moore often substituted two or three players at a time, and the team didn’t miss a beat with the personnel changes.
“We have five or six freshmen that can come in and make a difference,” Moore said. “As a coach, that helps a lot.”
Manchester product Gavin Better came into the game not long before the second media timeout and made an immediate impact on the game with six points in his first four minutes on the court. As the midway point of the first half came and went, Grace still remained in control of the game. Bethel’s offense was beginning to pick up the slack, but the home side was doing a great job at answering with a bucket of its own on the other end.
Up until the final two minutes of the first half, more than half of the Pilots’ points had come at the free throw line. The Lancers were having no such problems offensively, as a dunk by Gage Sefton extended the lead to 16 with three minutes until the break. When the buzzer sounded, the lead was 13. With how poorly the first half went for Bethel offensively, that was probably the best case scenario for the visitors.
“I thought we made them take tougher shots than they usually do, but I think we definitely got lucky with how they shot tonight,” Moore said.
Tyler Raasch scored six quick points to begin the second half as Grace was starting to flirt with a 20-point edge. Bethel’s offensive woes appeared to have followed the visitors into the second half, as the usually efficient offense was still jogging in place.
The freshman Raasch continued to pace his team heading into the media timeout, having scored eleven of the Lancers’ 15 points in the first five minutes of the second half. Along with his scoring, the 6’8” freshman was dominating the glass to win extra possessions for his own team while shutting down his opponents.
The Pilots could not get out of their own way, committing their seventh foul of the half in less than five minutes. Grace was not far behind, putting their opponent in the bonus three minutes later. With both teams now going to the free throw line after each foul, the pace slowed down significantly.
Despite the lack of rhythm, the Lancers were still finding little resistance as they continued to pour it on. By the time only 10 minutes remained in the game, the lead had creeped towards 30 as the team was somehow shooting better than the nearly 59% it shot in the first 20 minutes.
The Raasch brothers continued to dictate the game as time winded down, as four straight points by Ian made it a 28-point game entering the final media timeout. Tyler had flat out become the story of the game at this point, having poured in 25 second half points.
Both teams emptied their benches in the final minutes as the Lancers put the finishing touches on another statement victory.
Tyler finished with a double-double, leading all scorers with 27 points while grabbing eleven boards. Ian added 17, while Sefton had 12.
Grace (18-0, 8-0 Crossroads League) is at Goshen on Friday.
