Slow starts = victories?

I covered my first two high school boys basketball games of the season on Thursday, and both games featured a team getting off to a slow start, yet winning convincingly.

First, I saw Damien score six points in the first quarter. I don't know if I've ever seen that from a team that went on to score as many as 67 in a game. Damien followed up the six-point first quarter with a 20-point second quarter, more than tripling their output. Damien went on to beat Perris 67-55 in the Inland Empire Classic

Then I saw a favored Etiwanda team score 12 in the first quarter, fall behind by 11 points early in the second quarter before winning easily, 80-65 against Miller in an IE Classic quarterfinal.

Even though both Damien and Etiwanda didn't take control until the third quarter -- and in fact still trailed at halftime -- I think the key was the second quarter. Both teams made up ground by halftime and set the stage for the second half.