Waynesfield-Goshen’s Carson Barnes (14) shoots as Cory-Rawson’s Wilson Garmatter (12), Preston Stumpp (3) and Auston Inbody (34) attempt to stop him Friday night at Waynesfield-Goshen.
Jackelyn Johnson | The Lima News
WAYNESFIELD – First-year Waynesfield-Goshen boys basketball coach Brad Clum wants to see his team improve as the season progresses.
In Friday’s Northwest Central Conference game against visiting Cory-Rawson, Waynesfield-Goshen displayed improvement, especially on how it can finish a contest.
On Friday, Waynesfield-Goshen trailed Cory-Rawson 33-31 with 1:15 left to play. That was when the Tigers’ Levi Glick nailed his first 3-pointer of the contest to give the Tigers a 34-33 lead.
Cory-Rawson regained the lead.
Then, in the final seconds of the contest with Cory-Rawson leading 36-35, Glick canned his second 3-pointer of the night to give Waynesfield-Goshen a thrilling 38-36 victory over Cory-Rawson.
With the hard-fought win, W-G improved to 3-7 overall and 1-2 in the NWCC. Cory-Rawson slipped to 3-8 overall and 2-1 in conference play.
“Levi Glick came up big at the end for us,” said Clum, the former Allen East boys basketball coach. “He wants the ball in his hands. That’s what we talked about in the timeout (with 16 seconds left to play). We said, ‘Let’s get the last shot here. Get it in Levi’s hands, and let him create something. He can get a shot off, or he can kick it out to somebody.’ We knew as soon as he (Glick) caught it, that it was going up.
“They had a box-and-one (defense) on him for most of the game. To be honest, we weren’t too prepared for that. But we knew it was going to come eventually. We told him what we wanted him to do, and he got some key buckets for us at the end.”
Glick scored 11 points, including the two clutch 3-pointers for the Tigers. Landin DeWitt led Waynesfield-Goshen with 12 points, including three 3-pointers. DeWitt pulled down eight boards and dished out five assists.
In the first half, DeWitt scored nine points, including two 3-pointers. Glick scored all his points in the second half.
Preston Stumpp led Cory-Rawson and all scorers with 17 points, including a 3-pointer. Stumpp came away with eight rebounds and had one block. Wilson Garmatter had 11 points, eight rebounds, three steals, three assists and one block for the Hornets.
It was a tightly contested game for all four quarters.
At the end of the first quarter, the score was knotted at 8 apiece. W-G led 20-19 at the halftime break. Cory-Rawson pulled out to a 29-24 advantage by the end of the third quarter.
In the final eight minutes of action, W-G’s defensive pressure helped cause five Cory-Rawson turnovers and held the Hornets to 1 of 6 shooting from the field.
“The goal was to try to wear them down,” Clum said. “They don’t have a real deep bench either.
“We did try to get some guys in tonight that we normally don’t get in. We got some key minutes out of some guys who don’t score a lot of points. We had some guys who got in there and created some turnovers. They created some chaos that allowed us to get some transition buckets.”
Cory-Rawson committed 15 turnovers, while W-G turned it over 11 times on the night.
“The games that we’ve played well in, we’ve taken care of the ball,” Clum said. “I told them that we wanted to keep turnovers under 12 or 13 for the game. So, we were right there.”
W-G shot 28.8 percent from the field, while Cory-Rawson connected on 28.9 percent of its field-goal attempts.
“That (subpar shooting percentage) is what hurts us,” Clum said. “Our shooting percentage has gone way down toward the end of each game. So, it was kind of nice to see us hit some shots at the end, instead of hitting everything at the beginning. We haven’t shot very well this year. We’ve struggled with that. Eventually they will start falling.”
Cory-Rawson held a slight 36-33 edge on the boards.
Clum was pleased with his team’s effort on Friday.
“I was proud of these guys. We told them that it was going to be a battle for four quarters, and it was. It took every single second that we had to win,” Clum said.
NOTE: Connor Sons, a 16-year-old student-athlete at Cory-Rawson was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor in December and has undergone surgery.
Friday night, the Waynesfield-Goshen team, coaches and cheerleaders, along with Cory-Rawson’s team, coaches, and cheerleaders wore T-shirts in support of Sons, who was in attendance for Friday’s game.
Waynesfield-Goshen 38, Cory-Rawson 36
Cory-Rawson 8 11 10 7 — 36
Waynesfield-Goshen 8 12 4 14 — 38
CORY-RAWSON
Preston Stumpp 17, Blake Boehm 4, Wilson Garmatter 11, Carson Reese 2, Grant Welte 2. Totals: 13-9-36.
Waynesfield-Goshen
Jace Kaufman 2, Dalton Jordan 4, Levi Glick 11, Carson Barnes 6, Landin DeWitt 12, Keygan Morse 3. Totals: 15-2-38.
3-pointers made: Cory-Rawson – Preston Stumpp 1; W-G – Landin DeWitt 3, Levi Glick 2, Keygan Morse 1.
Records: W-G 3-7, 1-2 NWCC; Cory-Rawson 3-8, 2-1 NWCC
