Jays pull away from Cougars

By Jim Metcalfe, The Delphos Herald
Published:  Tuesday, January 6, 2009 (1 year, 2 months ago)
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DELPHOS — St. John’s and Van Wert have been playing boys basketball games a long time.
Saturday night’s encounter at Robert A. Arnzen Gymnasium came down to old-school: rebounding and handling the basketball; as the host Blue Jays banished the Cougars 55-43.
“Every day in practice and in the film room, we stress those areas. We have five keys to winning and those are two of them,” Jays coach Aaron Elwer noted. “We took great care of the basketball and limited them to one shot offensively. We knew Van Wert was going to challenge us and we answered the challenge. We really played with a lot of intensity. We fed off the crowd tonight.”
The Jays (4-0) won the battle of the glass 33-24 (13-4 offensive) as Tyler Hayson grabbed 7 and Tim Clark and Nate Webb added 5 each.
They also had 6 turnovers to 13 for the Cougars (3-4).
“St. John’s has a nice team. They are also very physical,” Van Wert mentor Dave Froelich observed. “At the same time — and I take nothing from St. John’s — I feel the skill is not being allowed in this game anymore. It’s hard to get much going when it’s so physical, especially when we had a similar game the night before.”
Van Wert’s Jacob Bagley (21 markers, 4 bombs) scored a pair of treys in the first period, including one from left of the key at 1:40, to stake the visitors to a 12-10 edge after one.
The Blue and Gold overcame 4-of-16 shooting in the period (19-of-46 overall, 7-of-23 triples, for 41.3%) with 6 offensive rebounds.
Bagley and Corey Clifton (8 markers; 6 assists) split the visitor’s 12 markers in the second period but the Jays used their better balance to come from behind and take a 4-point lead at one point. Bagley canned a spinner in the lane two ticks before the horn for a 26-24 halftime scoreboard.
The Jays’ Cameron Hermiller (8 counters; 7 assists) did a better job slowing down Bagley in the third period (4 points) but Jake Olsen (12 counters; 7 boards) got six. Unfortunately, they were the only two that scored and only three scored for the visitors this night. After a 6-0 spurt by the guests opened the canto, the Jays rallied with the 3-ball (4-of-9 in the period) and led by as much as 9 on a Justin Backus (8 points) trey at 1:27. Olson’s baby hook with a minute left reduced that to 41-34.
With the Cougars clearly tiring in the finale, the Jays opened up as much as a 15-point spread behind 5 each from Hermiller and Brandon Hemker (11 markers, 3 bombs).
“We let Bagley get away from us a couple of times or we didn’t have a high hand in his face and he’s a confident shooter. We defended him better the second half,” Elwer added. “No doubt, we wore them out with our depth. They had a double weekend with a game vs. Coldwater the night before and that makes a difference, too.”
Van Wert canned 16-of-34 shots (6-of-12 3s) for 47.1 percent and 5-of-13 freebies (38.5%). They amassed 18 fouls and host Bath Friday.
“We came out with a lot of effort; the kids tried hard. About midway through the third period, we started to get leg-weary,” Froelich added. “I tried to sub as much as I could but it’s also difficult when we are so limited offensively. It’s so hard to keep defending well when you’re not scoring.”
St. John’s drained 10-of-21 singles (47.6%) and added 15 fouls. They visit defending Division IV champion New Knoxville Friday.
The Blue Jays reserves won the second half 26-20 and the game 36-30.
Kyle Staup guided the hosts (3-1) with 11. Jacob Hood countered with 10 for the guests (6-1).

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