Boys basketball: Defiance downs Shawnee, 60-52

DEFIANCE — Shawnee had no answer for Defiance’s Cayden Zachrich down the stretch.

The Bulldog senior pumped in 25 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter to propel Defiance to a 60-52 victory over Shawnee in a key Western Buckeye League clash Friday night.

With the win, Defiance wins its seventh straight contest to go to 9-1 on the season and stays unbeaten in the WBL with a 3-0 mark. The loss ends Shawnee’s six-game win streak and drops the Indians to 6-4 for the year and 2-1 in league action.

Defiance and Ottawa-Glandorf remain the only two teams with undefeated marks in the WBL.

“I thought we lost the physicality battle and the rebounding battle and gave up too many second chances and that killed us in the first half and that is something we preached coming into the game that we are going to have to rebound and we are going to have to dig down on Zachrich inside and I thought their best players Zachrich and(Bradyn) Shaw did their job tonight and if those guys are combining for their averages we are going to be in trouble. If we could have held them to 12 or 15 a game we are going to be in really good shape and we didn’t do that so.

“I didn’t think we played particularly well early but we battled back and it was a tie game going into the fourth and it is an eight minute basketball game and they executed better than us down the stretch.”

Going into the fourth quarter, the score was knotted at 38-38 as defense dictated much of the action with both teams finding points hard to come by. In the first quarter, Defiance led 17-11 and by halftime the Bulldogs maintained a two-point advantage.

But then Zachrich, who had early foul trouble began to find his touch and helped Defiance jump out to a 50-33 with back-to-back buckets with 3:08 left in the game and the Indians failed to rally a comeback after that small offensive outburst.

As a team in the fourth quarter, Shawnee had 14 points.

Also making a major contribution on the offensive end for Defiance was senior Bradyn Shaw who notched 17 points and 6 of 10 from the free throw line to help ice the game away.

“i thought our guys were playing hard and we started slow and they got what they wanted and they were up 14-5 five minutes into the game and we dug down and got some stops and that led to some opportunities for us. They are really good in their half court set and they are very physical and they do a really good job of pushing you out and taking you out of your rhythm and I thought kind of played into their hands.”

Triplett also pointed to the fact that Shawnee was unable to produce turnovers with their press and pressure and that also attributed to the team’s inability to put points on the scoreboard.

“We didn’t get those transition points and they only had a few turnovers and they were the better team,” Triplett added.

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Credit the Bulldog defense for a solid effort in clamping down Shawnee’s top scorer. Coming into the game, Will McBride, Beckett Bertke and Austin Miller came in averaging double digits and Miller was the lone Indian to eclipse that barrier with 11 points.

Indian junior Nick Pasion, who came off the bench, chipped in 10 points. Miller, McBride and Bertke combined for 21 points.

Dominic Lynch grabbed seven rebounds.

“We have three guys that average double figures and they held all those guys below their averages and we got a spark off the bench from Nick Pasion and he hits some big shots and that gave us an opportunity. I think we had five points from Miller and McBride after the first half going into halftime and we were down by two and I felt good about that. I just thought they did a nice job of pushing us out further where we wanted to catch the ball.

“We talked to the guys about playing ‘hero ball’ and in baseball the metaphor is everybody is trying to hit a grand slam at all times. I thought they utilized their teammates and screens and we were trying to go one-on-one and iso(lation) and that is not a team you can do that against.”

Reach Jose Nogueras at 567-242-0468.