Pats Over Cats

If you were hoping to see offensive fireworks at the Twin Valley South gym, you were disappointed. But if you wanted to see gritty in your face defense, there was a ton of it on Friday night as two determined teams faced off – the undefeated Tri-Village Patriots and the TVS Panthers.  The Patriots have shown the ability to put up 100 points on the scoreboard, while South has strangled teams with their brand of defense.

South started with a zone type of defense, but shifted to a man to man.  Tri-Village stayed mainly in a man to man defense.  South used a 4 out and 1 in type of offense in the early going, but went to an offense where they could attack the basket better after a while.  Tri-Village did try to press some, but South seemed to handle the pressure fairly well.

With a smaller lineup, South seemed to have problems on the offensive boards in the early going.  Getting just one shot most possessions.  JJ Utz had one sequence where he gave up two back to back turnovers, but made up for it the next possession by getting open under the basket for an easy layup. Every Panther basket was needed in this low scoring game where points were hard to come by. Then Jason Utz hit 2 free throws in the last minute of the half to pull South even, but Patriot Mason McCabe hit a shot with seconds left to put Tri-Village on top 15-13. 

Tri-village was able to extend their lead in the 3^rd period and entered the last quarter with a 6 point lead.  At one point Tri-Village was up by 10 and in a low scoring game that seemed hard to overcome.  But South worked hard in the quarter and made up ground rapidly at the end thanks to some timely 3 point daggers .  The Panther charge culminated with Wes Cole hitting a 3 point shot with about 20 seconds left to knot the ball game at 36 all. 

There was a time out and South set up their defense. But Tri-Village’s Tyler VanWinkle found Colton Linkous who shot a buzzer beater that sealed the 38-36 win for the Patriots. South has been a hard luck team this season. They have shown that they can play with the best, but have come up just short against some very talented teams.

 “Couldn’t be more satisfied with their effort,” stated Coach Augspurger afterwards, “We defended well against a team that has a lot of offense.  They got like 3 or 4 good looks during the game, the rest of their shots were contested. But they defended us well too, they have a very tough defense.”

He continued, “We are not going to play a team better than Tri-Village,  and what Friday taught me was that if our defensive pressure is effective against them, then our defensive pressure is going to affect everyone.  We are a work in progress – our defense continues to get better and better.   We are finding better ways to score on offense. The loss to Tri-Village pretty much ends any championship hopes, now we have 10 games to be the best tournament team that we can be. I think that this team can really make some noise come tournament time.”

Newton and Valley View:  “Newton has two pretty good shooters that we will need to defend. Valley View likes to run the court.  The last 4 seasons we are 0-4 against them.  We have not had any success against them as of late.  This year we have a chance to turn that around.”

Scoring for TVS: Cole 12, Jason Utz 2, Cottingim 3, Bassler 6, Augspurger 6, Osborn 2, JJ Utz 5. Rebounding: Wes Cole 5, Jake Osborn 4, Anthony Augspurger 3. Assists: Augspurger 4, Cole 3.

Next weekend the Panthers will be on the road playing at Newton and Valley View.