South Outguns North

J. C. Tilton
Both North and South came into the game knowing that they would need to shut down the other teams leading scorer. Ryan Innis has lead the way for TVS and Brandon McAdams has been the leading scorer for TCN during this season. Finding a way to stop or at least slow down these two players would be a part of each teams defensive strategy.
North employed a man to man defense for most of the game - switching defenders on Innis. South implemented a box and one defense to start the game. This was effective for the first quarter and a half of play. North couldn’t get anything started offensively and South’s Innis had 15 first half points. At one point, South was up 30 to 12; it was starting to look like a blow out.

But finally the lethargic North offense woke up and they went on a 15-3 run to close the gap towards the end of the second quarter and at the half they were down 35-27. They continued their momentum in the third quarter. Closing the deficit to 5 with about a minute and a half left in the quarter. The North defense slowed down Innis, holding him to 4 during this run.

South entered the fourth quarter with resolve and went to work. South needed to regain the momentum and looked for someone to step it up a notch. Both Clint Spitler and Ryan Innis answered for South - finished strong, doing the bulk of the scoring in the stretch run. Both players attacked the basket and the North defense was back on their heels as the South lead lengthened. North tried vainly to press in the last couple of minutes as South countered with a slowdown and cruised to a 67-55 win.

“I thought that we passed well and Clint [Spitler] did a good job of looking up the floor,” stated Coach Augspurger after the win, “Our offensive rebounding went well, which is something we haven’t done much this year. We pounded the glass pretty hard in the second half.” On Ryan Innis, “He has done well for the team this year. One thing he did real well tonight was go after the boards, he got beat on pretty well, but fought hard for rebounds. And I don’t know how many assists Clint Spitler had tonight, but he had a bundle. He did a good job of taking care of the ball.”

Coach Woodworth had praise for South, “They know how to pass the ball, who to get it to at the right time. We were down by 18 points and outplayed them in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. But when we needed a stop tonight, we couldn’t get it done. We allowed Innis too many second shots in the paint. Defense and rebounding wins basketball games. When we learn to do that consistently then we will have something.”

Scoring for TVS: Spitler 16; Innis 25; Burns 1; Combs 7; Smith 4; Nisius 3; Balthis 3; Walker 8. Scoring for TCN: Broughton 2; Burnside 16; Werner 9; McAdams 12; Williams 3; Robinson 13. comments: chrisaukcam@gmail.com