Twin Valley South won their season opener against Dixie on
Friday night 42-37. South had two
players score in double figures – Seth Baker with 17 and JJ Utz with 12. For Dixie, Griffen Moore lead the way with
17. Dixie stayed on the heels of TVS all
night but just couldn’t muster a big enough run to surpass TVS. Head coach Tony Augspurger of South would
later remark that the team did a great job of executing their game plan as well
as any other team that he had coached. Dixie would win the consolation the next night
against Eaton handily 64-48, a game where their up tempo game and pressing
defense smothered the Eagles.
This set up the championship game between Stivers and
South. Stivers crushed Eaton the night
before 80-33 using a full court press and fast paced offense. South
entered the game with a short bench – only 2 players. While Stivers had 7 players that they could
swap in and out of the game. And in the
opening moments it looked rough for the home town team. Their first 4 possessions ended in turnovers,
but fortunately for South, Stivers was bricking their shots. Meanwhile South settled in and began to make
a few shots. And so ended up with the
lead at the end of the first quarter 13-9.
Stivers threw a variety of defenses at South – they opened
the second quarter with a 1-3-1 half court trap. But South seemed to handle this fairly
well. But Stivers height began to take
its toll as they began to hit the boards for second chance shots. Meanwhile South’s hot shooting from the first
quarter cooled off. Stivers went on a 20-2
run to close out the half with a commanding 35-17 lead.
South played with Stivers in the 3rd quarter, but didn’t make up
much ground. In the last quarter the
team just seemed to run to out of gas and Stivers pulled away for an easy
victory 68-46. “I was very proud of the way our kids played with them,”
remarked Coach Augspurger after the game. “We made our goal for the week which
was to get at least one win with a short handed team. Tonight we knew we were going to be
overmatched. Stivers is one of the
highest rated D3 teams in Southwest Ohio. We wanted to try and win the first
quarter and see what happens – and we did that.”
He continued, “We didn’t have enough gas and they jumped us
in the second quarter. And coming out
of the locker room we wanted to win the third quarter – and we did by one point.
This is a modified lineup that is small
and with very little varsity experience but the kids battled and scrapped. I am very proud of the effort that they gave.
“
“We had success this tournament with our 2-3 zone. My Dad was eye-balling some college zone
defenses last year and taped a lot of them.
We sat down in the off season and looked them over and took notes. We saw some stuff that we liked, and worked on
them with the team. And the kids are
starting to get it. Every team that we
have played they have not overly enjoyed it.
And even Stivers, they weren’t getting great looks in the zone
either. But we have to rebound better
than we did tonight. Against Dixie we limited them to one shot, tonight we didn’t
do that.”
On JJ Utz and Seth Baker making the all tournament team – “JJ
Utz has a chance to be very special, he is learning on the job this year – he is
quick, he is hardnosed. He is an athlete
that competes, he has a chance to be a very good high school point guard. Seth might have pressured himself too much –
he knows he has to score for us. He didn’t
shoot as well tonight as we know he can shoot.
But he played really, really well. “
Scoring: Burns 7, Bassler 7, McGuire 2, Osbourne 5, Utz 10,
Baker 13.
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