By Buddy Tabler
Special to the Tribune

LARNED — Larned High’s offensive machine was hitting on all cylinders on their homecourt Tuesday as they raced to a 69-51 victory over Hutchinson Trinity Celtics.
Larned featured a balanced offensive attack. Three players, Evan Skelton, Jonathan Herter and Trevor Meyer scored 14 points and Isiah Perez chipped in 13 points.
Larned (4-1) travels to Lyons Friday. Trinity drops to 1-4.
Larned jumped out to a 17-13 first quarter lead and then put it in overdrive in the second quarter as they posted 23 points to increase their halftime lead to 15 points and a 40-25 lead.
“I was particularly pleased with the play of our bench,’ said Larned coach Don Zimmerman. “Mason Schartz, Dalton Bright, Thomas Robison and Jonathan Herter were big factors in our second-quarter spurt.”
The second half was a game of short runs by both ball clubs. At one point Trinity hit a 3-pointer and dropped the lead to seven but Larned responded with a 3-pointer by Jordan Zimmerman and the lead never got under double digits again.
The Indians shot 45 percent from the field while limiting Trinity to 31 percent. Larned converted 23 of 30 free throws.
Payton Neufeld with 11 and Kaleb Hammeke added 10 for the Celtics.

TRINITY GIRLS 34, LARNED 22
Trinity Catholic’s girls erased a 9-4 deficit and rolled past Larned 34-22 in a non-league basketball game. The Celtics outscored the Indians 30-13 after trailing early. Callie Scheich led the Celtics with 15 points, 10 in the first half.
Freshman Baylea Perez led Larned with five points. The Indians (1-4) played without starters Haley Skelton (12 ppg) and Ally Aldrich, who missed the game with illness. The Lady Indians struggled to replace their two leading scorers as they shot 22 percent from the field and 5 of 14 free throws.
After leading 9-4, a scoring drought produced two second-quarter points to trail 14-11. A third quarter rally brought the Indians to within two but the fourth quarter belonged to Trinity as the Celtics pulled away from the cold shooting Indians.
Schleich led Trinity (2-3) as she hit seven jumpers from the outside. Mariah Hammersmith added nine points. Larned (1-4) plays at Lyons Friday.

Larned 69, Trinity 51
Trinity 13 12 12 14 — 51
Larned 17 23 11 18 — 69
Trinity — Neufeld 4 3-5 11; Hammeke 3 2-2 10; Remar 2 5-6 9; Walls 2 1-2 5; Martinez 1 1-2 3; Cramer 1 3-4 5; Hammersmith 1 0-0 2; Sattler 1 0-0 2; Dreher 0 2-2 2; Pritchett 1 0-0 2; Totals 16 17-23 51.
Larned — Meyer 7 0-0 14; Herter 5 4-6 14; Skelton 2 9-13 14; Perez 3 7-8 13; Zimmerman 3 1-1 8; Robison 1 0-0 2; Galliart 0 2-2 2; Schartz 1 0-0 2; Totals 22 23-30 69.

Trinity girls 34, Larned 22
Trinity                     6  9  4 14 — 34
Larned                    9  2  4  7 — 22
Trinity — Scheich 7 0-0 15, Hammersmith 3 3-7 9, Zrubek 1 2-2 4, Galliher 0 2-2 2, Hedrick 0 2-4 2, Simon 1 0-0 2; Totals 12 9-17 34.
Larned — Perez 1 2-5 5, Ritchie 2 0-0 4, Finger 2 0-5 4, Parr 1 2-3 4, Butler 1 0-0 2, Bright 1 0-0 2, Smith 0 1-1 1; Totals 8 5-14 22.