Boys basketball: Wallace claims city crown

GARY — Lew Wallace earned city bragging rights on Wednesday night, defeating two area teams to become the Gary Holiday Tournament champion.

For the two-round tournament, Lew Wallace took down West Side in the Tuesday game, then met Roosevelt in the finals and won 70-64.

Lew Wallace improved to 4-3 under first-year coach Melvin Yancey while Roosevelt fell to 5-3. Both teams will see plenty of each other in the new year so the win was exceptionally important.

“They beat us in the tip-off (preseason game),” said junior Charles Cooper, who scored 24 points and was named the tournament Most Valuable Player. “It’s basically a revenge game. We’re not going to let down again.”

Lew Wallace started the game efficiently, limiting its turnovers while scoring on nearly every possession to score 23 first-quarter points. On the other end, Roosevelt racked up personal fouls that hurt the team later in the game when the Panthers lost senior starting center Rondell Gardner near the midway point of the fourth quarter.

By the 3:41 mark of the second quarter, Lew Wallace was strolling to the foul line in the double bonus and made 10 of 15 free throws through the half.

The Panthers missed 10 of 11 looks from beyond the 3-point line and trailed 35-25 at intermission.

Roosevelt — the only team in the boys’ bracket that played three games in two days — appeared to find some life in the third quarter, making a late push thanks to senior Christopher Porter’s steal and fast break layup and senior teammate Brandon Hollingsworth’s four-point play. This surge pulled Roosevelt within one point but — thanks largely to the inside work of Cooper — Lew Wallace did not falter.

With 5:54 on the clock, Cooper showed agility in swiping a bad pass and dribbling in for the left wing lay up while absorbing a foul from Roosevelt senior Michael Jenkins. Cooper took over and scored six straight all at the rim and built a double-digit lead.

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