For the first 10 games of the boys basketball season, Elyria sophomore Cam Bell has been a shooter in search of the basket.
But if game 11 is any indication, the slump may be over.
Bell, who played a key role off the bench in last year’s 18-win season, exploded for four 3-pointers in the second quarter and five overall Jan. 16 as Elyria broke the game open on the way to a 74-54 Southwestern Conference victory over host Midview. The Pioneers are now 7-4 overall and 5-1 in league play, while the Middies drop to 6-6 and 1-5.
“When that first one went in, I’ve had games this year when I’ve made one or two,” Bell said. “But when the second one went in off the dribble, I knew it probably would be a good night.”
The 3-pointers were a result of Elyria’s running game, which forced the Middies to defend their basket, allowing the Pioneers to kick the ball out to Bell and his smooth long-range stroke.
“We were pushing the ball so hard to the baseline, and they dropped down and Cam was trailing, and he knocked them down,” Elyria coach Brett Larrick said. “We’ve been asking him to shoot it with confidence. We know he can shoot. We want him to keep shooting. When he knocked that first one down, I think you could kind of see that weight was lifted a little bit.”
The weight that Bell has been carrying is a result of him making only 6 of 32 3-pointers this season, a 19% success rate. Last year, in 24 games, he made 35 of 97 3-pointers, hitting 36% of his attempts.
“I think I provided a spark,” Bell said. “Every game there’s somebody who comes off the bench or somebody who starts who gives us a spark in the game. I think tonight it was me. But everybody played really well. Everybody was doing his part in the win.”
While Bell was the focal point for Elyria, it actually was the entire second unit that turned the game around for the Pioneers. After jumping to a 7-0 lead, Elyria went stagnant on offense, allowing the Middies to take a 13-10 lead early in the second period.
At the suggestion of assistant coach Dan Gundert, Larrick decided to make a hockey line change and removed all five starters at the same time. Bell, Rondell Grimmett, Darrion Crawford, Jermiah Daniels and Nicolas Rogers entered the game and immediately turned things around.
“The second quarter did not start the way we wanted,” Larrick said. “I felt like we were stuck in mud. Coach Gundert said, ‘Do you want to go all five?’ I kind of looked him and looked at the clock and then I said, ‘What are we going to do, go slower?’ But we put that group in, and they gave us a huge spark. Give that whole group credit for changing that game. They were ready to go tonight.”
The Pioneers made six field goals in the second quarter, with all of them coming from beyond the 3-point arc. Bell had four of them and Crawford and Grimmett each had one, but according to Larrick the second unit did more than just hit outside shots.
“Cam Bell made four 3s, but it wasn’t just the four 3s,” Larrick said. “It was our tempo, our pace, deflections on defense. They were getting after it. We got (Midview) to take some quick shots and we rebounded and got it out on the open floor. We moved the ball. We had six 3s in that quarter, but it was just the pace and tempo and how hard we were flying around.”
The 3-point barrage resulted in an 18-2 run that put Elyria in front, 28-15. The Middies, who were led by Steve Komar with 14 points and Drew DiFranco with 10, scored the final two baskets of the first half to make it 28-19, but an 11-6 run by Elyria made it 39-24 midway through the third quarter, and things only got worse from there for Midview.
“They’re a good team,” Midview coach Jim Brabenec said. “At the end of the first quarter, we talked about how we can’t give up a run, and then Cam Bell came in and knocked down four 3s. We’ve got to do a better job of finding him after he hits one or hits two. I thought we were playing okay defensively, but then we just let them go. The next thing you know, we were up two and we went down 10 in the blink of an eye.”
Brabenec was not happy with how his team responded to Elyria’s second-quarter explosion. Rather than take advantage of their superior size, the Middies instead attempted to match the Pioneers from the outside, with disastrous results. Midview made just 3 of 20 shots from beyond the arc and 19 of 36 from within.
“We have to do a better job of getting the ball inside,” Brabenec said. “We stunk again from the perimeter tonight. We’ve got to get the ball into the basket. Until we buy into that, we’re going to struggle like tonight. We have to do a better job of playing to our strengths. That’s getting the ball inside. Just because they start hitting 3s doesn’t mean we have to start taking them. We’ve got to get it inside or we’re going to have a similar result.”
Bell and Jayden Crutcher led the Pioneers with 15 points each, while Grimmett added nine and Taylor Blanton had eight. Elyria has only one senior on the roster, and Larrick is able to go as deep as 10 or 11 players each night.
“We have a lot of depth on our team,” Bell said. “There are a lot of guys who might be JV starters or not get a lot of minutes on varsity for us, and they could go to other schools and start varsity. It’s good knowing that every game we have seven or eight guys who can go score at any time.”
THE SCORE
Elyria 74, Midview 54
