Morris' playoff run falls short

Updated: March 23, 2011 3:48PM

Quickness. There is no substitute.

Morris found that out the hard way as Rock Island used its quickness to jump out early and cruised to a 78-37 victory over the Redskins Wednesday evening in the Class 3A Peoria Sectional held at the Renaissance Coliseum at Bradley University.

Rock Island (26-3) will play Peoria, a 51-46 winner over Peoria Notre Dame on Tuesday, for the sectional title on Friday at 7:30. The Redskins end their season at 21-9.

"Right now we're frustrated," Morris coach Joe Blumberg said. "It's hard to lose by 41 and be proud. But at some time this loss will wear off and we'll think of the 37 wins and two regional plaques in the past two seasons. No one can take that away from this senior group."

Senior forward Kjeld Torkelson led Morris with 16 points, including four three-pointers. But Morris just couldn't find any other offense, and often couldn't even get in position for a shot. The Redskins finished with 25 turnovers.

"They're more mature than last year," said Torkelson of the Rocks, who defeated Morris 61-49 in this game a season ago. "They can certainly jump higher and had a lot of quickness. We should have been more ready, but no matter how well we played, it would be really hard to beat the No. 2 team in the state."

Rock Island's quickness showed right away and the Redskins trailed the whole way. The closest the score ever got was 3-2 on a Torkelson layup with 3:39 left in the first quarter. But at that point they had missed their first four shots and turned the ball over three times.

The score was 11-7 when the Rocks scored the final five points of the opening quarter in a 47 second span to take a 16-7 lead after one period.

Morris committed 15 first half turnovers, seven in the first quarter and eight in the second.

The second quarter turnovers were especially costly. Torkelson hit a three-pointer from the right wing to bring Morris within 18-10 a minute into the period. But the Rocks forced numerous turnovers in going on a 16-3 blitz over a span of 4:10. That put them ahead 34-13 with 2:33 left in the second quarter. Senior guard Chasson Randle started the spurt with a three-pointer and had eight points in the run.

Randle, who has committed to Stanford, finished with a game-high 21 points and added five rebounds. Senior guard Royce Muskeyvalley had 13 points, junior forward Denzel McCauley 12 points and senior guard Romal Davis added 10 for the Rocks.

It could have been even worse, except Torkelson drained a long trey from the left wing at the buzzer to cut the lead to 40-21 at intermission.

If the Redskins had any hopes of getting back in the game they were quickly dashed as Rock Island hit its first seven shots and eight of its first nine in opening the third quarter with a 17-4 run. Senior forward Keith Keesy scored six of his 10 points in the run for the Rocks.

"We hoped we could rally and get a couple of buckets to start the second half," Morris junior center Jake Olson said. "But they hit everything. They are so quick and good, it was like they were putting on a show out there."

Olson came off the bench to finish with seven points and seven boards. Junior guard Will Terry added six points, and senior guards Josh DeGraaf (five points) and Phil Struck (three points) rounded out the Redskin scoring.

"We got a lot of wins and I had some great teammates," Torkelson said. "Not many Morris basketball teams have won 21 games and we're the first to win back-to-back regionals. I just wish we could have done better tonight though."

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