Picture and recap by: Ray Whitehouse
11/20/07
The Zion Benton Zee-Bees continued their winning ways against Oak Park River Forest today at day 2 of the Lane Tech Thanksgiving Tournament.
The Zee-Bees got off to a hot start thanks in large part to junior Quintrell Love. After Zion took a quick lead, Iman Shumpert and co. went to work for Oak Park. Shumpert, a Georgia Tech commit who ranks as the number one ranked player in the state, made consecutive heads up plays on defense which led to scores for OPRF by Eastern Michigan commit Daniel Barnes. This, combined with a set of defensive stops by Zion Benton, forced Coach Don Kloth to call a timeout. During its surge OPRF used full court press to force turnovers and played a transition style of offense. Although Shumpert played solid defense, he hardly made his offensive presence felt in the first half. Sophomore Lenzelle Smith Jr. did a great job on defense against Shumpert, who only had 6 points in the first half. Daniel Barnes, who finished with 21, paced OPRF on offense and hit a set of threes late in the second quarter as OPRF took a 32-26 lead into half time.
OPRF scored twice beginning the third quarter to put the lead at 10. Just as it seemed that OPRF was putting the game out of reach, Zion Benton crawled back into the game by slowing the tempo down and forcing OPRF to score using a half-court offense. Although Zion was able to run with OPRF, they slowed the tempo down in order to force OPRF into a difficult offensive situation. “We had to be patient” said Assistant Coach Bob Worthington. The transition opportunities became fewer and OPRF had to knock down shots to score. However, Shumpert ended the quarter with an impressive dunk as the OPRF clung to a 3 point lead.
The fourth quarter started and OPRF’s scoring effectively ended. They went scoreless for 6 minutes by settling for jump-shots against the Zee-Bees slow down defense. Senior guar Rodney Clinkscales tied the game at 50 and Zion never looked back. Clinkscales led an 8-0 run to bring the score to 55-50. This run was part of Zion’s outscoring of OPRF 23-8 in the 4th quarter. Clinkscales, who ended up with 18, 14 of which came in the second half, says “once we handled the press, we were fine”. Zion allowed very few uncontested shots and put OPRF on the free throw line instead of allowing an easy layup. OPRF did not capitalize on this strategy, as they missed multiple free throws late in the game. Iman Shumpert added 5 points in the last two minutes, but also missed three free throws in a row. Lenzelle Smith, who ranks amongst the elit sophomores in the state, ended with 19 points, 15 of which came in the second half. In response to the win, Rodney Clinkscales says “We just come out and play hard.” Zion Benton will be a force to be reckoned with if they continue to come out and play the way they have against Evanston and Oak Park River Forest.