Whatever Mike Walker said to his team at halftime, he may want to bottle that up and save it for later in the season.
With Lloyd Memorial trailing 30-24 at halftime on the road at Ryle, the Juggernauts came out like well…a Juggernaut in the second half. They outscored the Raiders 42-15 in the game’s final 16 minutes for a 66-45 victory. The loss was Ryle’s first of the season.
“Just some adjustments we had to make. We came out flat,” Walker said. “They were clogging in the paint and their main focus was to slow down EJ (Walker). I’m okay with that, you can slow down EJ, but he might be the most unselfish top 100 kid in the country. I’ve got other good basketball players. We’re going to share the basketball and enjoy everyone’s success.”
Isaiah Sebastian led the second half charge, finishing with 21 points, 17 of them coming in the pivotal second half. He scored six points in the first 1:47 out of halftime, the Juggernauts opening with an 11-0 run to take a 35-30 lead.
“They started pressuring me and none of them guys are faster than me,” Sebastian said. “So I just used my athleticism to my advantage and got to the rim.”
EJ Walker added 17 points and cleaned up what seemed like every defensive rebound to help get the Juggs in transition and clear the way for Sebastian or Anthony Blaackar to attack the rim.
“Our biggest thing was attack downhill, attack downhill, attack downhill,” Mike Walker said. “With them so worried about taking away EJ, those lanes were wide open and they had to come off two feet and go finish.”
Blaackar added 12 points, Elijah Collins with a hot hand in the third quarter with eight points. The third quarter was where the game was won, Lloyd outscoring Ryle 32-7.
For the first 16 minutes, Ryle looked like they might be on their way to 5-0, the 4-0 start the program’s best since 1993. They were aggressive, racking up 22 points in the paint and got Walker in foul trouble with two first quarter fouls.
They opened with a 14-6 lead before taking a 18-15 lead into the second, thanks to an Anthony Coppola runner to beat the buzzer. Coppola led the Raiders with 17 points on the night.
“Loved how physical we played in the first half,” Raiders coach Nick Dorning said. “Got quick looks at the basket, spacing was pretty good and thought our kids came out ready to go. Just got a little bit tentative in the second half. Came out and had a couple bad looks at the basket and came out tentative on both ends.”
Ryle maintained the advantage throughout the second quarter, leading by as much as seven before taking the 30-24 lead into the half.
That aggressiveness from the first half didn’t carry much over into the second half, settling at times from the perimeter with Lloyd off to the races on misses. The nightmare third quarter was met with some tension towards the end, Landon Lorms picking up a technical while the student section continually hit Walker with “overrated” chants, Walker a top 100 player in the country for the Class of 2025 and flirting with 30 college offers, majority of them Power Five conferences.
“Every time I hear that, I play better so keep it coming,” EJ Walker said.
Amidst losing their cool a bit, the Raiders were unable to regroup, Coppola the lone Raiders point scorer in the fourth with all eight points. Lorms added 13 for the two Raiders in double figures on the night.
“We can’t worry about what the officials or fans or what the other team is doing. Basketball is an emotional game and we’re dealing with teenagers that are emotional young men. It boiled over a little bit tonight. We’ll keep our heads up tonight and work on what we did wrong tomorrow,” Dorning said.
They’ll look to regroup on Saturday when they take on Central Hardin in the John Turner Classic at Newport at 3:30 p.m.
Lloyd gets nearly a week off before they host Newport Central Catholic on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.
JUGGERNAUTS 66, RAIDERS 45
LLOYD — 15-9-32-10 — 66
RYLE — 18-12-7-8 — 45
Scoring
Lloyd (66) – Sebastian 21, Walker 17, Blaackar 12, Collins 8, Humphrey 4, Bresser 3, Golsby 1
Ryle (45) – Coppola 17, Lorms 13, Davis 6, Zmurck 5, Verax 2, DeGroff 2
3-Pointers made: Lloyd 5, Ryle 4
Free Throws: Lloyd 9/16, Ryle 3/5
Fouls: Lloyd 14, Ryle 18
Records: Lloyd Memorial 3-1, Ryle 4-1