Fairview: 397. Opponents: 267.
The numbers don’t lie.
These two figures denote the third quarter point differential between the Fairview boys basketball team and their opponents. Never scoring less than 11 points and never allowing more than 19, the one-loss Knights have dominated in their favorite quarter.
“I think it’s a mentality we’ve had over the past couple years that we expect to be good in the third quarter,” says Frank Lee, Fairview’s 15th-year head coach. “Our kids carry that out, and they’ve been exceptional in the third quarter this year.”
After all, with two state Final Four appearances in the past four years, exceptional is nothing less than the expectation for Lee and his program.
The Knights’ incendiary play coming out of halftime speaks to the fact that the 2011-2012 Knights are nothing more than another Lee-coached team—aggressive, hard-nosed, never ready to lose, and always willing to do what is necessary in the second half to win.
“I think it’s just the fact that we come out strong every game and play defense hard,” said senior forward Jacob Lorentzen. “We really turn it on in the third quarter, and teams can’t usually deal with that very well.”
This propensity for stellar third-quarter play has strongly contributed to the Knights being near-invincible this season. Their only blemish a 70-55 loss to ThunderRidge in the first game of the season, the Knights have developed a team-first philosophy based on awareness from individual players.
“I think they’ve shown a great team ego,” Lee said. “I think they’re more concerned [with] the outcome of the game than they are with what they do individually.
“We have trust in each other, and I think [the players] are focused on the things they should be focused on [for] a team game.”
Lorentzen, averaging 11.2 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks per game this season, says the tight-knit team atmosphere is a refreshing change from last season.
“Last year wasn’t the greatest,” he said. “We were angry with each other all the time. This year we seem to be getting along all the time.”
“We laugh a lot,” Lorentzen’s fellow senior forward Jay Arehart said. “It’s a lot of fun. Playing on the floor is fun, winning is fun. Everything about it is just really fun.”
Wouldn’t you have fun, too, if you were riding a 22-game winning streak and winning those games by an average almost 22 points per game?
None are having more fun than the team’s Big 5, composed of Lorentzen and four guards: Brent Wrapp (9.0 points, 6.2 assists per game), Shane O’Neill (13.3 points, 6.3 rebounds per game), Jonah Crespi (8.0 points per game), and Holden Killeen (9.7 points per game).
However, it is not only those five running the whole show for the Knights. This year’s squad has considerable depth, as the team features a talented bench that seems to realize its role as sparkplugs.
“Off the bench, we help the starters out,” says Arehart, who averages 5.1 points per game coming off the bench. “They start off the game and we bring in the same intensity, that same energy—and we keep it up. We really keep the score [close] if not lead it, so that’s part of the whole thing.”
“We have great deal of depth,” Lee said. “I think anybody can pick anyone else up. If you look at each game, I think a different player has stepped up.”
Arehart’s and Lee’s words echo in truth, considering eight or more players have scored in 18 of 23 games this season. Bench players Gibson Farone-Collins, Alec Pronk, and Arehart keep the frontcourt anchored, while Caleb Pykkonen fills in as a very capable guard.
Lee will need his starters and replacements firing on all cylinders if the #1-seeded Knights hope to do what the ’09-10 and ’10-11 teams could not—reach the Colorado 5A State Final Four and win the state championship.
“I think one of the huge keys is that we win the turnover battle, that we have fewer than the other team,” Lee said. “That’s one of the most important statistics there is. I think we have to believe that we can get the job done, but these kids have faced some talented teams up to this point and have always gone with the mindset that they can compete with them.”
Lorentzen believes that his team playing the way it has all season will translate to success in the tournament.
“I think we’ve got to just keep doing what we’re doing,” he said. “We’ve got to keep playing defense hard, and not let them do what they want to do. We’ve got to do what we want to do.”
And with some more third-quarter magic from his team, Lee could coach his squad all the way into mid-March.
“They think that they can do well and they’ve proven that they can do well,” Lee said. “They expect to do well.”
And they should–exceptional is the expectation.
