Advance hits Zalma with big third period

ZALMA -- Zalma coach Steve Wells put it simply when he said that Advance took control by out-rebounding his team, especially in the third quarter Tuesday night.

Hornets senior David VanGennip grabbed many of Advance's rebounds, as he was too much for the Bulldogs to handle near the basket.

VanGennip scored 16 points in the third quarter alone, while the Hornets outscored Zalma 22-7 after leading by just six points entering the period.

Four of VanGennip's first five baskets of the third quarter came after right after collecting a rebound off his own missed shot or a miss by one of his teammates.

Advance cruised to a 76-42 win over the Bulldogs at Zalma High School.

"Advance did an outstanding job rebounding the basketball," Wells said. "He [VanGennip] really went to the backboard hard. He never assumed once that they were just going to make the shots. ... He had the attitude tonight where when that ball came off it belonged to him."

Advance (11-2) outscored Zalma (6-7) 43-15 in the second half.

"[We were] just doing the fundamentals," Advance senior Blake Lingle said about the second half. "We were shot faking, taking care of the ball, moving the ball and getting the ball to where it needed to be like in David and Jake [Bond[']s] hands."

The Hornets had eight different players score in the contest. VanGennip poured in a game-high 30 points. Bond netted 16 points.

For Zalma, Justin Stotts netted 12 points. Nick Smith and Stephen Simmers each added 10.

"The key was to shut them two [Stotts and Lingle] down and make the other ones try to win the game for them," Lingle said.

Advance led 27-14 with 5 minutes, 29 seconds remaining before halftime. But Zalma went on a 13-6 run before the break to cut its deficit to 33-27 at halftime.

"We knocked down some shots and got it within six," Wells said. "We were on a roll but sometimes in the second half we've been known to come out a little flat and that's what happened. They jumped us hard and things started snowballing."

The third was when VanGennip started to heat up.

Advance senior Blake Seabaugh, who netted six points, said one of his team's main goals was to penetrate to the basket and feed the ball to VanGennip.

"David, he's an animal," Seabaugh said. "That's what we call him. We feed him down in the post when he's hungry. ... It's very important for David to be down low to finish for us because we're out there busting up the 3s or something and he's down there finishing."

After Seabaugh connected on a jump shot to open the third and to extend Advance's lead to eight points, VanGennip followed by scoring his team's next 10 points on a 10-2 Hornets' run that helped Advance take a 45-29 lead with 4:15 left in the third.

Most of VanGennip's points in the second half came in the paint right near the basket.

"I missed about every jump shot I took," VanGennip said. "I couldn't hit a shot and that motivated me to go the boards."

Advance coach Josh Dowdy said Zalma did a good job of beating his team up the floor at the end of the first half but his boys got back on defense in the second half.

"We knew coming in that we had to get back on defense and take away the transition buckets," Dowdy said. "We just didn't do a good enough job. So we talked a little bit about that at the half. We talked about ball pressure. And I think we cleaned a lot of those things up. I think it helped us turn the game back around."

@z_agate_HSbasketball_linescore:Advance 76, Zalma 42

Advance18152221--76

Zalma101778--42

@z_agate_no tab_no indnt_bld ld:ADVANCE (76) -- Luke Steil 6, Matt Ware 5, David VanGennip 30, Tyler Slinkard 5, Brandon Coleman 2, Blake Seabaugh 6, Blake Lingle 2, Jake Bond 16. FG 32, FT 9-20, F 9. (3-pointers: Slinkard. Fouled out: none)

ZALMA (42) -- Stephen Simmers 10, Casey Sitze 2, Nick Smith 10, Kevin Walker 6, Andrew Tucker 2, Justin Stotts 12. FG 20, FT 0-2, F 16. (3-pointers: Simmers 2. Fouled out: none)