HOWARD — The East Knox Bulldogs wanted a rock fight.
They wanted a four-quarter slog; a bruising battle; a game that hinged more on ball control and box-outs and contested lay-ins than it did open threes and fast-break finishes.
They wanted to dictate the terms of engagement on Tuesday night. And they needed to, with defending league champion Fredericktown coming to Howard. The Freddies played fast and free, the stylistic Jekyll to East Knox’s Hyde.
Whoever imposed their will – and their style of play – would win this cross-county matchup.
And East Knox, in front of a raucous home crowd, was up to the challenge.
The ground-and-pound Bulldogs (4-0, 4-0 Knox-Morrow Athletic Conference) out-muscled and out-hustled the run-and-gun Freddies (2-4, 1-3 KMAC), 43-32, on Tuesday night. They held Fredericktown to just three points in the fourth quarter, using their air-tight half-court defense and methodical offense to grind out the win and remain unbeaten.
“Our number one thing with them is to stop their transition game, make them work in the half court,” East Knox head coach Ryan Powell said of Fredericktown.
“I feel like we are, right now, a very good half-court defensive team. I think we’re improving, and I think people struggle to score against us in the half court. They’ve got a lot of athletes that like to get out and they kind of feed off those easy buckets.”
The Bulldogs, who started the season late due to the football team’s run in the Division VII state playoffs, have defeated Cardington (by 24 points), Mount Gilead (by 18 points), Northmor (by 8 points) and now Fredericktown (by 11 points) to begin conference play. They are giving up just 29 points per game, while scoring 44. East Knox sits alone in first place with eight games left to play.
“It’s been our defense. I mean, coming into tonight, we were giving up 28 points per game. And what’d they get, 32? I don’t know, I think any time you hold that team in the mid-30s, you’re doing something,” Powell said of the team’s hot start.
“We hang our hat on defense. We talk every day – our three focuses are defense, rebounding and taking care of the ball. And we feel like, if we do those three things well, we’re gonna be pretty hard to beat. So far, we’ve done pretty well with those things.”
The Bulldogs were led Tuesday by senior forward Shane Knepp, who scored a game-high 19 points and dominated down the stretch, using his length and physicality to terrorize Fredericktown on both ends.
“We definitely knew it was gonna be a tough one. Fredericktown always plays us tough and all four years of high school, it’s been a battle,” Knepp said with a smile. “But it’s a really good one to win. I think after a slow third quarter, we just came out and started hitting our shots finally.”
Knepp was particularly clutch in the fourth quarter, when the game hung in the balance.
East Knox saw its 9-point halftime lead evaporate in the third quarter, as Fredericktown got out in transition for the first time all night. The Freddies outscored the Bulldogs 9-2 in the period, with junior forward Teegan Ruhl contributing 5 points for the visitors. East Knox led 29-28 going into the final stanza.
Coming out of the huddle, Knepp said he knew things would need to change in order for East Knox to grind out a win. And as a three-year starter – and the team’s go-to scorer and playmaker – he took it upon himself to make that happen.
“I just knew I needed to change something up,” he recalled. “I was thinking maybe (I should) drive more. I was shooting earlier, so I was trying to change it up – just to get a different look and get other guys open, and just move their defense around.”
Knepp wasted no time imposing his will in the final quarter.
He began with an up-and-under lay-in, just 24 seconds into the period. Then, moments later, he rebounded his own miss and muscled in another shot, stretching East Knox’s lead to five.
Fredericktown called a timeout to regroup, but it didn’t matter. When the Freddies walked back out onto the court, Knepp was waiting.
He blocked a lay-up on the next possession, then went down and converted his own, driving through three Fredericktown defenders on his way to the rim.
He continued to wreak havoc defensively, forcing turnovers and contesting shots around the hoop. After Fredericktown began to face-guard Knepp midway through the fourth, he turned into a distributor, using his strength and court vision to find open teammates for buckets.
Senior Dillon Moreland and junior Carson Steinmetz both scored 4 points in the final quarter, helping East Knox put away Fredericktown for good.
“We kind of had a talk over the summer (about how) this is his team,” Powell said of Knepp. “It’s my team, it’s everybody’s team, but we’re gonna go as he goes. He makes everybody better.
“And he’s gonna have several people, several eyes on him; the other guys have gotta be ready to make shots when he finds them. Because as good of a scorer as he is, he’s a very good distributor of the ball. He sees the floor well and gets his teammates open, and the other guys just need to start playing with a little more confidence.
“I think the second half was very big for Moreland and Steinmetz, who haven’t really been making shots, and who stepped up and did some good things.”
East Knox outscored Fredericktown 11-3 in the final quarter. The Bulldogs were strong with the ball against Fredericktown’s trapping pressure, and they were relentless defensively, forcing turnovers and tough shots around the rim. After a brief spark in the third quarter, Fredericktown was never able to regain the momentum – and pace – that had led to its success.
“This has kind of been the same thing. We’ve just gotta find ways to get better,” Fredericktown head coach Derek Dibling said. The Freddies have now lost three straight conference games after beating Danville in their opener.
“We struggled with consistency all night and just couldn’t seem to string stops together, string scores together. It’s just a roller-coaster and we’ve gotta find ways to be more consistent.”
The Freddies had no answers for Knepp, and Dibling praised the senior for his work ethic.
“He’s just got a good motor. I mean, he’s obviously a smart guy, knows how to run a team,” Dibling said. “He’s very unselfish, made a lot of extra passes when he easily could’ve took it upon himself to (score). I think he’s just a solid all-around player. Tough to slow down.”
Moreland finished with 9 for the Bulldogs, while Steinmetz tallied 7. Senior guard Peyton Lester scored 6 points, all in the first half, while sophomore forward Ethan Rine had 2.
Ruhl and junior guard Brady Lester both tallied 11 points, respectively, to lead Fredericktown. Junior forward Kaid Carpenter, one of the area’s top scorers, mustered just 7 points against the Bulldogs. He got into foul trouble early and was never able to establish a rhythm.
“I thought we were able to keep (Carpenter) from getting anything easy early,” Powell said. “We got him in foul trouble, which helped – that was kind of a goal of ours, to attack him defensively.”
Powell felt the key to East Knox’s success Tuesday was its ability to dictate the tempo. And he said the team’s experience – with four seniors starting and seven on the roster – helped it pull through in crunch time.
“I thought we were able to right the ship,” Powell said. “That’s the beauty of having a lot of seniors that have played a lot of games. They realized that it’s not time to panic, it was time to play our game. And I thought we did in the fourth quarter.”
Fredericktown will look to get back on track Friday when it faces KMAC foe Cardington (1-5, 0-3) on the road. East Knox will look to keep its streak alive next Thursday, Dec. 23 at Elgin (3-2).
The Bulldogs and Freddies will face each other again on Jan. 18 at Fredericktown.
