Parkway Central gets tough on defense, topples Parkway North

In back to back losses to DeSoto and Hazelwood West last Friday and on Tuesday night, the Parkway Central basketball team’s shooting wasn’t pretty and their defense was downright ugly.

Fast-forward to Friday night at home against Suburban South and fellow Parkway rival Parkway North and the Colts found a rejuvenating vibe front of their home crowd.

Central (13-8, 3-1 in Suburban South play ) fought through a lack-luster first half and utilized a physical man-to-man defense and a pair of Zac Carel free-throws in the final 10 seconds to hold off the Vikings 47-45.

Knocking off North was a huge relief for the Colts, who had lost three of the last five games going back to Jan. 23 when they played in the Ameritime Classic Tournament at Missouri Baptist University.

“Any time we play North its a rivalry game and you want to win,” Parkway Central 6-foot-7 senior forward Zach Biggs said. “It was a good overall job by our team on the defensive end and the scary part about that game is we know we can play better.”

Biggs was scary for North to handle as he pumped in a game-high 17 points and was a constant force on the boards as well. “We did a good job executing and getting some (fast) break layups,” Biggs said. “Anytime you can get easy baskets it’s great for your momentum”.

After being down 12-11 to start the second quarter, the Colts embarked on a 9-1 run keyed by a Carel jumper and capped by a 10-footer from Eric Moore and Biggs free-throw which made it 21-12.The catalyst for the big second quarter run was the Colts stifling, in-your-face man to man defense.

“I knew that coming in my job wasn’t offense tonight but that I had to play good defense and keep Donovin (Newsom) off the boards so I went into the whole first half with a defensive mind-set,” Carel said. Coach tells us every day defense comes from offense.”

North closed the half with an 8-2 run as Darryl Harman’s three-pointer from the top of the arc pulled the Vikings within 23-20 at the break.

Moore drilled a big three-ball with 3:58 left to stretch the Colts to a 40-32 cushion but North came roaring back in the final minute as Aaron Hines was fouled on a three-point shot and knocked down all three free-throws cutting the gap to 45-43 with just 9.4 seconds left.

On the Central inbounds play, Carel was fouled and knocked down a pair of free-throws to make it 47-43 with 6.1 seconds to go. Carel finished the night with 13 points.

“Once the game moved down the line, I just tried to get to the free-throw line,” Carel said.

North got a running layup from Hines to drop in at the buzzer but the Colts held on for the win and avoided a three-game losing streak.

“I told the kids before the game it’s gonna come down to what we do on the defensive end and we gotta keep them (North) off the glass,” Parkway Central coach Todd Pannett said.

“Sometimes, it’s not about x’s and o’s but other things like playing with energy, pasion and heart. When we play with energy, passion, and heart we can be a pretty good ballclub.”

Parkway North (16-5, 2-2 in Suburban South play) was led by 6-foot-8 senior forward Darrell Johnson with 11 points and Hines with 10 points.

NOTES:  In the girls game played at 5:30 p.m., Parkway North defeated Parkway Central 51-40. The win was the Vikings second over the Colts this winter. Zach Biggs was honored before the boys game by Parkway Central for breaking the 1,000 point mark for his career. Biggs set the record in the Colts’ 72-35 victory at Seckman back on Jan. 20.