VAN WERT — Wapakoneta’s boys basketball team achieved a school-record 20th victory on Friday night much the same way it put the first 19 in the scorebook.
Skillfully. Efficiently. With just a little flash thrown in.
“They’re like a European team. They have eight guys who can pass, dribble and shoot and they’re very athletic,” Van Wert coach Mark Bagley said after the Redskins finished the regular season with a 52-42 win over the Cougars on Friday night.
Nate Schroer scored 16 points and Nick Schoonover scored 14 points, including four 3-pointers, for the Redskins (20-2, 8-1 Western Buckeye League).
Wapakoneta’s only losses were to WBL champion Ottawa-Glandorf and Minster.
Jacoby Kelly and Drew Bagley scored 12 points each for Van Wert (12-10, 4-5 WBL).
Wapakoneta grabbed the lead early and never let it get away against an opponent which had won five of its last six coming into the game.
The Redskins went up 13-4 after one quarter. Then, after Van Wert cut the lead to two points, 15-13, two and a half minutes into the second quarter, they went on a 17-5 run to end the first half and go to the locker room with a 32-18 lead.
Van Wert cut the lead to six points twice in the second half, but that was as close as it could get.
“I thought our defensive pressure was kind of the difference. They’re pretty good when they can run their plays and run sets and I think our defense kind of took them out of it pretty well,” Wapakoneta coach Doug Davis said.
That pressure had a prominent role in the Redskins’ fast start. They held Van Wert to 1 of 9 shooting and forced eight turnovers in the first quarter.
“We’re averaging nine turnovers a game. The big thing about that was we tried to dribble through their press, especially at the end of the first half. That was a killer,” Bagley said.
“After the bad start we kind of leveled out. But then they went on a huge run and that really propelled them.
“We were down 14 against a really good team. I think when that happened we tried to do too much one on one. That’s not us. We’re a very good passing team. We just weren’t tonight.
“Give them a lot of credit, they made a lot of plays. “They’ve had a great year. They came into our gym and took it right from us tonight,” Bagley said.
Davis said, “It’s a big win for us. The players really wanted to get to 20 wins.”
The previous Wapakoneta boys basketball record for wins in a season was 19 by the 2005-2006 team.
“They work well together,” Davis said about the Redskins. “We don’t have super size but we do have guys who are all athletic and they all can handle the ball pretty well. And they’ll sit down and play defense.”
.neFileBlock {
margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
padding-bottom: 5px;
padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
font-size: 85%;
}
