Campus surprises Collegiate in first round of El Dorado basketball tournament
Campus found a way to make history repeat itself in Thursday’s opener of the Bluestem Classic.
At the 2016 tournament, the eighth-seeded Colts scored an upset of top-seeded Collegiate.
This year, Campus, seeded seventh, played in a fashion that belied its 2-6 record in taking a 68-59 first-round victory.
“Bottom line: I just thought they were tougher and better than we were,” Collegiate coach Mitch Fiegel said. “We knew coming in they were a bad draw for a 3 p.m. game.
“We sure didn’t overlook them, that’s for sure.… Maybe my kids did, but my coaching staff didn’t, and we did everything in our power to make our guys understand that we were playing a legitimate team.”
The Colts hit seven three-pointers, two in the pivotal third quarter when they outscored Collegiate (6-3) 20-8 for a 52-36 lead at the end of the period.
“We had a big-time third quarter,” Campus coach Chris Davis said. “Nobody panicked, and we just pulled together and found a way.”
Collegiate staged a furious fourth-quarter comeback, but the Colts managed to hold the Spartans at arm’s length down the stretch.
“We did what we’ve done all year, which is wait until there’s three minutes left to start playing,” Fiegel said. “And you can’t win a basketball game in three minutes.”
Campus has taken its lumps early in the season, but Davis said the quality of the Colts’ competition has made their record a bit misleading. The Colts began the season 0-6, including losses to Andover Central, Salina Central, Maize South, at Newton, and at Derby – by one point. They started a hot streak in the new year with home triumphs over Arkansas City and Salina South before Thursday’s victory.
“Nobody has played a tougher schedule in the state of Kansas,” Davis said. “We just learned some lessons on how hard you’ve got to compete and how hard you’ve got to play.
“This prepared us, and we’ve had a great 2018 so far. We’ve just got to keep rolling.”
Most significantly, Campus has only one senior getting significant minutes – Rico Harvey, the quarterback on the Colts’ football team this season.
Freshman Sterling Chapman (6-foot-4) led the way with a team-high 16 points, including two three-pointers in playing all 32 minutes.
“He played extremely smart, and he didn’t come off the floor,” Davis said.
Chapman’s brother Steel, a 5-10 sophomore, chipped in 11. One of Harvey’s favorite targets during football season, junior Tyler Kahmann, also hit two three-pointers and finished with 14 points. Cade Howard, a 6-7 junior, scored five of his 10 points in the third quarter.
Kahmann said it’s refreshing to see the Colts on the upswing.
“I thought we just came out and played our game plan perfect, just like our coaches asked us,” he said. “We’re for sure getting better. We had two wins coming into this tournament, and we’re getting better offensively, defensively. We’re just playing really good basketball right now.”
Collegiate, which will take on Newton in Friday’s 3 p.m. opener, had three players score in double figures, led by junior Gabe Fisher’s 17 points.
In Friday’s winners’ bracket at 8:15 p.m., the Colts (3-6) will face sixth-seeded Kapaun Mount Carmel, which surged to a double-digit lead on Newton, then held off the Railers, 47-38.
This story was originally published January 18, 2018 at 7:17 PM with the headline "Campus surprises Collegiate in first round of El Dorado basketball tournament."