South Runners up in Holiday Tournament

Twin Valley South won their opening round game in Preble Shawnee’s Holiday Tournament.  They easily defeated their opponent to play in the championship game the following night.  But the host team – Preble Shawnee was able to put together a winning game plan and thwarted South’s efforts at a sweep for the weekend.

South was still smarting from their loss last weekend and were revved up when they played their opening round game against Tri-County North.  Both teams are hovering around the .500 mark on the season.  But South had the upper hand in this game.  They  put up 21 points in the first quarter and kept their foot on the pedal as they easily outpaced North for a 74-40 victory.   South had 3 players in double figures:  Mike Green lead all scorers with 30 points, followed by Wes Cole with 20, Seth Baker had 11.  JJ Utz had 6, Jacob Bassler had 5 and Josh Cottingim scored 2.  North was able to capture one victory on the weekend by winning the consolation game against Gamble 70-44. 

Preble Shawnee earned their way to the Championship bracket with an opening night win over Gamble 83-62.  It was a fast paced game with lots of points scored in transition.  And Shawnee was also able to score points in transition against South.  That and turnovers were the bane for the South throughout the night.  In the first quarter, Shawnee focused on driving into the paint.  This was successful from a scoring standpoint and also it put South center Mike Green into foul trouble with 2 first quarter fouls.  He would later get fouls 3 and 4 and had to spend time on the bench.

South soon found themselves down by double figures and resorted to a trapping defense and late in the game to a man to man defense to try and keep Shawnee off  balance and slow their pace of scoring. The South offense was slow to warm up, they were cold in the first half.  They managed to make a little run in the 4^th quarter but after trimming the lead to 10 points, Shawnee woke up and surged ahead for the win 56-40. 

Shawnee’s Coach Crider said that getting Green out of the game was key, “We focused on going inside in the first quarter and it paid off.  Green got 2 fouls and had to sit.  On defense we wanted to keep him out of his comfort zone on the blocks, we knew that if he started scoring, he was hard to stop.  We pressured their outside shooters and made it hard for them to score.”

South’s coach Augspurger had praise for Shawnee, “They had a good game plan and executed it.  You have to hand it Shawnee they earned the win. We had too many turnovers, some due to their defense, but many were self-imposed.  As a team we have to learn to bounce back, we seem to get down and just hang our heads.  We need to get that attitude where we fight back against adversity.”

Scoring for South: Cole 10, Green 4, Bassler 5, Utz 4, Baker 17.