There were a couple of scary moments for Lincoln East’s boys basketball team Friday night.
Like when 6-foot-6 senior center Jordan Janssen took a charge with 2:50 left in the first quarter and appeared to hit his head on the floor. He had to be helped off the floor and was escorted to the Spartan locker room by trainer Mac McCuistion.
Or when high-scoring Omaha Burke senior all-state guard Shereef Mitchell went off for six points in a span of less than 2 minutes to spark a Bulldog 8-0 run to start the second quarter.
Both turned out to be false alarms.
Janssen bounced back to score a team-high 21 points, grab 11 rebounds and block three shots in leading the Class A No. 2 Spartans to a 56-42 home victory over No. 7 Burke.
“Over the years, Jordan’s learned how to fall,” East coach Jeff Campbell said, referring to Janssen’s defensive play in the first half. “Knock on wood, he’s never had a serious injury for us.
“He had a great game,” added Campbell, whose team improved to 17-1. “He got pounded in there pretty good. He was getting slapped and hit in the post and he played through it.”
After being held scoreless in the opening period and missing his first six shots, the 6-foot Mitchell went off for a game-high 23 points, not far off his average of 25 per game. Mitchell’s teammates, however, accounted for just 19, which was not enough firepower to overcome a 20-7 East lead after one period.
Mitchell had 10 points in the second quarter when he hit all five shots he took, but after Burke got as close as 20-17, the Spartans closed the second quarter with an 11-4 run to lead 31-21 at the break. The Bulldogs (14-6) never got closer than seven in the second half.
Mitchell played on the same Omaha Sports Academy Crusader select team in the summer as Janssen and East’s Sam Griesel, so Janssen thought he knew what to expect when Mitchell would make his lightning-quick moves to the basket.
“I’d like to think that we know what he’s (Mitchell) going to do, but he pulled out a couple new ones (moves) tonight I haven’t seen before,” Janssen said.
Campbell said, “Mitchell is tough to contain because if you start committing too much to stop him, he’ll create opportunities for his teammates.
“You have to live with the fact he’s going to hit some shots, and those were tough shots he hit in the second quarter,” the East coach added. “When we did force a miss, I thought we did a good job rebounding and limiting them to one shot.”
Janssen’s 11 rebounds led to a 33-23 East edge on the boards.
After East suffered its first loss to Millard South last Saturday, Janssen said the team “did a lot of post work in practice. We made it a point of emphasis to be more physical in there."
Janssen, who was 10-of-15 from the field, had seven points in the fourth quarter when East patiently worked its half-court offense and started taking time off the clock.
“My teammates found me in good positions to score and we executed our half-court sets well,” he said.
Three Spartans finished in double-figures as Griesel, a 6-6 senior South Dakota recruit, netted 13 points and junior guard Connor Riekenberg knocked down a pair of three-pointers on his way to 10 points.
“We definitely wanted to push the ball, but East did a good job making it a half-court game,” Burke coach Kevin Kobs said. “Take out the first quarter and it was a six- to eight-point ballgame. We needed a secondary scorer outside of Shereef to step up.”
Lincoln East girls 70, Omaha Burke 46
Alli Roh scored 13 of her game-high 17 points in the first half to lead the No. 2 Spartans (15-3) to a 35-19 lead at intermission. Regan Sankey added 14 points. Ali Haith paced Burke (5-13) with 14 points.
