St. Marys’ Jace Turner (left) and Shawnee’s Dominic Lynch battle for a loose ball during Friday night’s game at St. Marys. See more high school basketball photos at LimaScores.com.
Don Speck | The Lima News
ST. MARYS — Boasting a starting lineup of three players over 6-foot-6, St. Marys is known for its inside game. But against Shawnee, the Roughriders showed they can also hit from the outside as early precision perimeter shooting helped them to a 78-55 win over the Indians in a Western Buckeye League contest Friday night.
With the victory, St. Marys, which has won four straight, improves to 8-5 on the season and ups its WBL mark to 3-2. Shawnee slips to 7-7 for the year and 2-3 in league action. The Indians have lost their last four of five contest.
“I thought we came out strong and played well,” St. Marys head coach Dan Hegemier said. “I thought we passed the ball well in the first quarter and in the second half our feet got a little slow and we put the ball on the floor and didn’t attack the rim.
“Offensively I thought it was good in the first half. Anytime you score 50 points in the first half that is good. In the second half I think we got caught up with Shawnee wanting to run us up and down the court. When we have the lead we have to work the clock a little bit more and pass the ball and get easy shots.”
Hegemier added that it worked out that when three men collapsed on Park in the middle that allowed the Rider outside shooters open looks and they delivered in the first quarter.
By hitting from the outside early, St. Marys jumped out to a 23-8 lead after the first eight minutes. In that stretch, the Riders hit five treys to garner the double-digit advantage. Leading the way with a trio of treys in the first period was Evan Angstmann and Brayden Sullivan with two 3-pointers.
With the big lead, St. Marys went to Austin Parks in the second stanza. After being shutout in the first period, Parks spearheaded the St. Marys offensive attack by scoring 12 points in those eight minutes and helped St. Marys to a 50-30 lead at halftime.
By the end of the third quarter, St. Marys owned a 64-43 lead.
Parks finished with a game-high 25 points and is now 50 points from eclipsing the St. Marys’ all-time scoring record set by Derek Jay from 2012-17. The record stands at 1,296. Parks did set in new school standard in total field goals made.
Rider Jace Turner had himself a double-double night as he scored 22 points and grabbed 11 rebounds. Evan Angstmann finished the game with 13 points.
“Those guys (Turner, Angstmann and Sullivan) can shoot,” Hegemier said. “We don’t have an offensive where we just have Austin Parks. We don’t coach it like that.”
For Shawnee, Will McBride scored 19 points and teammate Austin Miller added 11 points.
Hegemier pointed out that it was the team’s simple man-to-man defense that was effective in preventing the Indians from putting together a consistent offensive attack. It didn’t hurt the Riders’ cause to have Parks parked in the middle as the big man finished with five swats to match his five dunks.
Reach Jose Nogueras at 567-242-0468.
