Lindbergh Dominates Parkway Central for Fourth Straight Win

With his team leading 29-15 at halftime, Lindbergh boys basketball coach Jason Wolfard went into the locker room unsure what criticism to offer his team.

He couldn't get mad at the shooting after they went 6-for-7 from behind the 3-point line. He couldn't be upset with how they took care of the ball after they committed just six turnovers. And he surely couldn't find fault with a stifling defense that allowed Parkway Central just two points in the second quarter.

"We went in there at halftime and tried to find something we could get on them for to do better," Wolfard joked. "We got on them for offensive rebounds but couldn't really get on them too much for that because we shot the ball so well and didn't have many opportunities."

The resurgent Flyers cruised after the strong first half and rolled to their fourth-straight win with a 59-34 trouncing of the Colts at Parkway Central High School Tuesday night.

Lindbergh (4-1) hadn't won more than two games in a row since they won seven straight en route to an appearance in the Final Four of the Missouri State Playoffs in February and March of 2007.

Four different Flyers hit at least one 3-pointer in the first half and six players had at least one field goal. The Flyers turned an 11-10 lead midway through the first quarter into a 29-15 lead at the break with an 18-5 run to end the half.

Ironically, the Flyers put the entire run together without leading scorer Charley Mueller, who departed with the score 11-10 after picking up his second foul.

"It shows what I've said about this team from the beginning—we don't need one guy," Wolfard said. "It's someone different every night. It's all the little things. It was an 18-5 run, but everything we did was because of our defense. That's one thing we've been lacking in the past, a way to stop teams, but our defense was pretty superb tonight."

Superb might be an understatement. The Flyers held Parkway Central to just two points in the second quarter and 34 points for the game, the latter of which they accomplished just once all of last season.

Lindbergh forced Parkway Central into 20 turnovers, and had six uncontested layups in the first three quarters that came as a result of steals. The Flyers allowed just seven points in the third quarter and 12 in the fourth, though five of those came in garbage time with the end of Lindbergh's bench on the court.

"Our turnovers translated into easy buckets for them," said Parkway Central assistant coach Aaron Mueller. "Then we got behind and tried to extend and pressure a little bit which is not something we do a lot and ended up giving up some easy buckets on the back end.

"They took us out of our offense. They pressured us and we didn't respond really well. We allowed them to pressure us and we turned the ball over and never really got into a rhythm."

Junior Zach Biggs led Parkway Central with 21 points, but the rest of the team combined for just 13 points. No other Parkway Central player had more than three points.

The Flyers were led with 12 points each from Mueller and senior Will Spitzfaden, who had two steals and two easy layups and a 3-pointer to score the final seven points of the first quarter for Lindbergh.

Guard Blake Welch added 10 points, Joe Killian had seven and Mike Ebert had six for Lindbergh, which went on a 12-2 run to end the third quarter after Parkway Central had cut the lead to 11 points early in the period.

"The shots we took, compared to what we've taken the past few games, they were just much better shots," Wolfard said. "We were getting open shots and I told these guys from day one, we can be that good. We can shoot. It's always been a strength of this team but we hadn't really shown it yet until tonight.

"When everybody does their job and everything clicks and everyone plays to their potential, it's scary. It's a lot of fun as a coach to have that many weapons."

In just their sixth game of the season, the Flyers will look to match their win total from all of last season (five) when they play Francis Howell North at the Family Arena in St. Charles on Friday at 5:30 p.m.

Parkway Central dropped to 3-3. They will play Francis Howell on Sunday at 4:00 p.m. at the Family Arena.