Sparta coach Deric Link is quick to admit he isn’t a bowler.
“But I know the terms,” he said. “I’m a sports fanatic."
Link indeed is familiar enough with bowling to borrow lingo from the alleys and convert it to the Trojans’ terminology on the hardwood.
Sparta was tracking and tagging turkeys in its 74-35 triumph against Spokane on Friday.
“Just like if we were bowling and got three strikes in a row, if we get three defensive stops in a row we call it a turkey,” Link said. “It’s something catchy that the kids have caught on to. Our goal is to get seven turkeys a game. We've found if you get seven in a game, you've got a real good chance of winning.”
“Coach comes up with things like turkeys to help us find a sense of urgency, almost like a second reward for our hustle and stops,” guard Walker Loveland said. “In practice, any time we do anything defensively, we have to get three stops in a row before we're done with the drill. We do a drill called cutthroat and we did it for 45 minutes one time because we couldn't get three stops in a row."
Sparta (5-0) yielded 17 points to Spokane in the first quarter, but allowed the Owls just 18 the rest of the game, as a competitive 21-17 contest turned into a turbo-clock rout.
“The more turkeys you get, you clearly have a better chance of winning,” center Jake Lafferty said. “I’m guessing we got a lot tonight.”
Loveland led the turkey shoot by turning up his intensity during the decisive second quarter.
“I came in slow in the first quarter. You can tell by the score we all did,” Loveland said. “I realized I needed to step up. I needed to pull my weight."
Loveland hounded his counterpart, Spokane point guard Ricky Riott.
“Me and Ricky have been playing forever. We know each other pretty well,” Loveland said. “It's cool to play against someone like him. It's not very many times you see people as fast as you, let alone as fast with the ball in his hands. He’s very quick, very shifty.”
“(Loveland) can impact the game the way he can pressure the ball and get guys to speed up or do something they're uncomfortable with,” Link said. “With his ball pressure, we thought it could impact the game tonight the way it did.”
“He was definitely energized in the second quarter. That was after coach Linc got on to us,” Lafferty said of Loveland. “He responds well to coaching.”
Lafferty relates he doesn’t respond well to Loveland’s defense when they go one-on-one
“I can handle the ball pretty well now, but he steals it every time,” Lafferty said, “I can't deal with him.”
With Friday’s outcome decided early on, attention down the stretch turned to Lafferty’s bid to outscore the Owls all by himself. He exited with three-plus minutes remaining holding a 35-33 edge on the hosts.
Alas, Spokane tied Lafferty with a late bucket.
The contest was eerily similar to Sparta’s 64-34 victory versus Purdy earlier in the week in which Lafferty also scored 35.
For the week it was Lafferty 70, Purdy and Spokane 69.
“No, you don’t,” Link said about seeing an individual make a bid to outscore an opponent two games in a row. “But when you’ve got a guy like him, it's not shocking.”
“We’re so heavily focused on our turkeys because we know that Jake is going to go get 30 points,” Loveland said. “If we can keep the other team as close to 30 as possible, we know Jake can pretty much outscore the other team. The rest of us don’t have to score 15-20 points. We just have to get eight, 10 or 12.”
Backing up Lafferty were Trent Ingle with 11 points and Loveland with 10.
Lafferty netted 13 field goals, including a pair of 3-pointers, and went 7-of-8 at the free-throw line.
He already has 156 points on the season, averaging 31.2 points a game. He’s also averaging eight free-throw attempts a game.
“I'm focused on getting to the rim and the fouls just come,” Lafferty said.
Ethan Newell’s 11 points led Spokane (2-4). The Owls had seven 3-pointers.
