LaGRANGE – To watch Prairie Heights senior Brandon Christlieb on Friday, you’d have no idea that he could have had any court rust after missing the first six games of the season.
Perhaps he didn’t have any rust in the first play. Christlieb scored a game and career high 36 points as the Panthers upended NECC foe Churubusco 87-61. It secured Prairie Heights sole possession of first place in the conference, continuing their record start to 8-0.
There were plenty of good things along the way, but Christlieb’s hot hand was monumental in the Panthers win. He scored 14 of his points in the first quarter, including four three pointers. He finished just as hot late, slashing through the lane and finishing through contact as he flirted with the first 40 point game in the area this season. Although he fell short of that, he still showcased one of the best individual games this season, regardless of conference.
“I just have to give a lot of respect to my teammates that got me the ball. I had the hot hand and they just kept on feeding me the ball,” Christlieb said.
His coach was impressed at the outing for Christlieb, calling it a coming out party and saying that Christlieb’s first game this past Wednesday was kind of the start of a new season for the Panthers.
“We always knew that was there. We see it in practice but we never knew if it would come out in a game, if he could relax enough and just let the game come to him,” Prairie Heights coach Tony Everidge said of Christlieb’s performance.
As a team, Prairie Heights ran far away from Churubusco from the outset. The Panthers buried their first six shots of the game: Elijah Malone with three baby jumpers from 7 to 8 feet, three pointers from Christlieb and Mike Perkins and finishing with a Christlieb fast break layup.
Even when Perkins missed the team’s first shot three and a half minutes into the game, Chase Bachelor chased down the offensive rebound. Prairie Heights parlayed their high percentage shooting to a 27-10 lead after one quarter.
“I don’t think these kids ever lack for confidence. But I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think I’ve ever, even in practice, seen them play like that,” Everidge said.
Malone went to work in the second quarter as Christlieb got a little bit of downtime. The big man dominated the paint and went to work at the basket, spinning free of the defense on Hunter Perlich on a number of occasions. Malone even went all out chasing a loose ball in the second, diving after the ball near midcourt and having the strong mind to get rid of the ball to a teammate before careening past the half court line.
He ended the first half with 17 points and by game’s end, several dunks later, the Panther post accrued 26 points in the contest.
Prairie Heights stayed consistent in the second half despite and improved effort from Churubusco and the hot hand of Jackson Paul, who finished with 25. Perlich added 15 points for the Eagles.
“I’ve got some good players here. This is a big win; I look at this as that was round one,” Everidge said. “There could be a round two and maybe a round three. They [Churubusco] are going to get better and I guarantee you they will be ready to play the next time they play us.”
Potential rematches in the NECC Tournament and Sectional round would see a sought after battle in the post between Malone and Churubusco’s 6-foot-8 junior Landen Jordan, who will not play until January. The Eagles were also missing third leading scorer Noah Wolfe on Friday night.
But all of that is just detail for another time. Friday night belonged to Prairie Heights and the deep crowd in Panther country was all about making noise as the Panthers closed out the girl/boy double header with the school’s second win of the night. As hard as it will be to move past the big NECC win, Christlieb knows that the big statement from Friday means nothing if the Panthers don’t keep playing at the same level.
“We feel like we’ve been overlooked so we wanted the respect level to be there,” Christlieb said. “It doesn’t stop there, we’ve gotta keep grinding.”
I thing p
Prairie heights is doing good for this year I hope they do well in the future so that way they can move and go to Nationals I pray that you all win.