By Erik Harris
TRUSSVILLE – Harassing defense propelled Clay-Chalkville to a 60-30 victory over crosstown rival Hewitt-Trussville on Friday night at Bryant Bank Arena.
The Cougars ripped their way to 15 steals that resulted in transition offense all night.
“We just came out here and really wanted to turn up of defense, give it all we got, work on locking their shooters up, making sure they don’t get a lot of shots up and I think we did a pretty good job at it,” said Clay-Chalkville center David Turner.
Following a tight opening quarter of play, head coach Jeremy Monceaux’s defense ran wild to lift the guests to a 36-10 advantage at the break. A 24-point second quarter put the game out of reach.
The Huskies gave the ball up 11 times in the opening half and managed to make one of their 11 shots from behind the arc.
Their ball security remained shaky throughout the contest as Clay-Chalkville bounced in and out of their full-court press defense, which kept Hewitt-Trussville shooters off target. The Huskies went 3-for-16 from deep range in the game. Freshman Sean Elmore made two of those shots.
Things got particularly unpleasant for the home crowd in the second quarter when the Cougars snatched five quick takeaways, four of them sticking to the hands of Hasan Abdullah and nearly all of them resulting in transition points.
Abdullah triggered a Husky timeout when he claimed his sixth takeaway of the game, pushed the tempo and pulled up from beyond the arc to swell the lead to 22 with 3:30 remaining in the half. He finished with eight points and six steals.
“I think (our defense) created a lot of our baskets, you know we got a lot of breaks, a lot of wide open layups and that made it a lot easier,” said Turner.
Senior Sean Burrell led the Cougars with 10 points and five rebounds. Jailon Chappell added seven points.
Clay-Chalkville will hit the road to Walker on Monday before it hosts the Class 6A, Area 12 tournament, which begins Thursday. The Huskies begin their area tournament that same day at No. 3 Mountain Brook at 7:30 p.m.