Staff Photo by Jake Olson: Granada Huntley East Chain/Truman/Martin Luther's Brody Grathwohl drives in the lane against St. Clair during the first half of Friday night's matchup at Martin Luther High School.

NORTHROP – St. Clair’s speed and transition scoring were too much for Bryan Nowicki and his Granada Huntley East Chain/Truman/Martin Luther boys basketball team on Friday night in Northrop, taking down the Jaguars 73-57 after scoring at least 35 points in each half.

GHEC/T/ML was coming off a hard fought back-and-fourth affair with Cleveland on Thursday night. As the contest against the Clippers turned out to be a 65-61 loss, Nowicki was immediately worried about his team’s condition coming off such a grueling game.

“We knew coming in that these guys were going to run,” Nowicki said. “We played last night, lost by four in a tough game. I could tell in the second half that the legs were tired. …These guys are a good team. A 2AA school, and they can run up and down the court.”

St. Clair’s Samuel Freitag and Hunter Winkler scored 25 and 20 points to pace all Cyclones. Freitag nailed four 3-pointers and four field goals. Austin Ward chipped in 17 points for himself.

It was a balanced scoring effort from the Jaguars. Brody Grathwohl led his team in scoring with nine points. Lane Kruse had eight himself, while Eli Jensen, Griffin Studer and Reagan Emmert each had seven points, respectively.

GHEC/T/ML’s biggest lead of the night came inside the opening six minutes of the contest. An Emmert 3-pointer and interior makes from Studer gave the Jaguars a quick 9-5 cushion.

St. Clair countered the early offense with a defensive switch to a 2-3 zone. The new scheme halted the Jaguars’ momentum on the court, leading to long rebounds and quick turnovers that got the Cyclones’ transition going.

A Freitag layup in open court gave St. Clair a 12-9 advantage that they never looked back from. Ward finished another layup off a turnover to extend the Cyclones’ lead 26-11 with just over five minutes left in the half.

“We do it to ourselves,” Nowicki said. “We sometimes get a little too excited and don’t run through the offense.”

Nowicki’s team responded during the final five minutes by scoring 12 of the final 23 points before halftime. The Jaguars displayed a 2-3 zone of their own to hopefully slow down St. Clair’s offense. With the insertion of Kruse from the bench, GHEC/T/ML went into the break down 37-23. Kruse notched seven of his points over this stretch.

The momentum carried over briefly at the start of the second half. A post layup from Ethan Jaskulke and an outside shot from Grathwohl cut the Cylones advantage 41-28. Elliot Flohrs later found Studer on a give-and-go cut to the basket to keep it at a 13 point game, 44-31.

“I told them to just slow down, especially against this team,” Nowicki said during this GHEC/T/ML scoring run. “Take 15-second, shot percentages go up the more passes you make. You move the ball a little bit, and you get some better shots.”

However, that was the closest it was for the final 14 minutes. After three minutes of no scoring, St. Clair rattled off a quick 8-2 run that brought their advantage up even further, 52-33, with under 10 minutes to go. Consecutive layups from Winkler and an outside shot from Freitag ballooned the lead to 67-38 four minutes later.

“We kind of just got a little bit out of sync,” Nowicki said.

GHEC/T/ML (4-13) will play at Loyola Catholic next Monday at 7 p.m.