Perry Petty scored 21 points and Todd Peterson had a double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds as the Central Illinois Drive defeated the Rochester RazorSharks 101-80 to earn a sweep in the 2012 Premier Basketball League Finals to become the new league champions.
The Drive shot 53-percent from the floor and made 12 3-point shots in the game, giving Rochester its worst loss of the season and its worst playoff loss in team history.
“We got beat by a better team,” said Assistant Coach Chris Iversen. “We came in, stuck to our game plan and did pretty good, but they just made their shots.”
While Central Illinois may have made their shots, Rochester did not always hit their shots, as they hit 44-percent, including 14-percent from 3-point territory. The RazorSharks were also out-rebounded by a margin of 39 to 27.
“Stats like that will always hurt a chance to win,” said Iversen. “If a couple of their shots miss and we get a couple more rebounds, this could be a different story.”
“Throughout the season we established ourselves as an inside-outside team [trying to get the ball into the post and passing to the open man outside], but tonight that did not always work out,” said Aaron Williams, who finished the game with 15 points and seven rebounds.
With a halftime score of 43-37 led by the Drive, both teams were in a battle, but just like in game one of the finals, Central Illinois used a big second half to pull away and win the championship.
“They played a full game,” said Jerice Crouch, who finished with a game-high 27 points. “In the second half they started to make their shots and stretched the lead. We made some runs, but they made their big shots too.”
Jemal Farmer scored 18 points and had six rebounds and Anthony Slack scored 12 points for the Drive. Daniel Ruffin added 11 points and four assists. Jamal Davis fouled out of the game with six points and four rebounds and Melvin Council scored half of the team’s bench scoring when he finished with 10 points for the RazorSharks.
“[The Drive] are a great team, they played together, they played hard and that’s how you win a championship,” said Crouch.
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