Cameron Elwer of Delphos St. John’s goes up for a shot defended by Lincolnview’s Reide Jackson during Friday’s Division IV sectional final at Robert A. Arzen Gymnasium.
Richard Parrish | The Lima News
DELPHOS — Lincolnview had no choice but to muddy up Friday night’s sectional final against top-seeded Delphos St. John’s.
That strategy worked early on, but foul trouble caught up to the Lancers, and the Blue Jays got hot in the second half to put away a 64-38 win.
Lincolnview (6-18) committed five fouls 90 seconds into the game, and it took the Lancers 2:30 in the second quarter to reach that number again. The over-aggressive Lancer defense had St. John’s in the bonus for all but three minutes in the first half.
“It was a very rugged, very slow start,” Delphos St. John’s coach Aaron Elwer said. “They were very physical and we earned the whistle in the first half on those fouls. Sometimes it’s tough to get jump-started and that’s exactly the way they wanted it. They wanted to wear us down and have us make bad decisions. They executed their game plan well in the first half, but I think halftime refocused us.”
That coveted jump-start that St. John’s needed to put the game away came in the third quarter.
The Blue Jays (21-2) scored the first six points of the second half to go up 33-15. Lincolnview answered with threes from Cal Evans and Max Hammons, but once the lead was cut down to 10 (33-23), Cameron Elwer and Andrew Elwer hit shots from deep, and the game was never close again.
Andrew Elwer hit four threes on the night and finished with 12 points, second in scoring to Cameron Elwer, who put together another 30-point performance, shooting 10 of 18 from the floor. The Elwers combined to sink eight of The Blue Jays’ 10 three-pointers in the game.
“We were calling quick hitters to get Andrew more looks in the first half because we knew he had it going, but our guys weren’t executing those as well as we normally do,” Elwer said. “That’s a little uncharacteristic of us. I thought we did a much better job of that in the second half of making the right play and getting back to being ourselves.”
Once Delphos St. John’s got started, they couldn’t be stopped. The Blue Jays outscored Lincolnview 42-23 in the second half.
Cal Evans paced Lincolnview with nine points. Kreston Tow and Max Hammons each added eight.
St. John’s hit 22 of its 34 shots from the field, good for 64 percent. Lincolnview went 15 of 44 on field goals to finish 34 percent from the floor.
The Blue Jays also held the rebounding advantage 27-19 and won the turnover battle 11-6.
With its win, St. John’s advances to the district semifinals at 6 p.m. on Tuesday at the Elida Fieldhouse to take on Miller City. The Wildcats beat Crestview 48-43 on Friday night.
“They’re a big and strong team with good length,” Elwer said of Miller City. “Their roster is senior-dominated, and that’s the type of team you have to watch out for in the tournament. It’ll be a great atmosphere over there at Elida and they’re going to play extremely hard against us.”
Delphos St. John’s 64, Lincolnview 38
Score by quarters:
Lincolnview 8 7 12 11 — 38
Delphos St. John’s 10 12 21 21 — 64
LINCOLNVIEW
Cal Evans 9, Kreston Tow 8, Max Hammons 8, Bennett Kill 6, Steven Smith 2, Jared Jessee 2, Reide Jackson 2, Tyler Spray 1, Totals: 15-6-38
DELPHOS ST. JOHN’S
Cameron Elwer 30, Andrew Elwer 12, Austin Moenter 6, Aaron Moenter 5, Tyce McClain 5, Ian Fairchild 3, Brayden Klaus 1, Totals: 22-10-64
Three-point goals: LV —Evans 1, Hammons 1; DSJ — C. Elwer 4, A. Elwer 4, McClain 1, Fairchild 1.
Records — Lincolnview 6-18; Delphos St. John’s 21-2
Reach Chris Howell at 567-242-0468 or on Twitter at @Lima_Howell
