South Splits Weekend Games

South had to play two tough games on the road this past weekend. They ended up splitting the games, bu their win was a league win, which moves them up a spot in the league standings. Mississinawa Valley has been playing some good basketball this season and are in the top half of the CCC with Twin Valley South. It was a defensive game where the two teams sparred all 4 quarters and South managed to come away with the win, but it took some 4^th quarter heroics to walk out with the victory.

South was up at halftime, but the score was 17-16. So scores were hard to come by for both teams. South was playing tough defense, but on offense shots were not dropping for them. However, the Blackhawks were able to pull ahead in the 3^rd quarter and put some daylight between themselves and the Panthers. They had a 6 point lead going into the last quarter.

South responded in a big way behind the shooting of Jacob Bassler. He scored 14 of his 25 points down the stretch. South went on 12-1 run to pull ahead and try to take the drivers seat. But the Blackhawks recovered and clawed their way back. They retook the lead with less than a minute left in the game. South was down one and inbounded the ball under their own basket with just 15 seconds left. Jacob Bassler scored on a layup and put South up by one and then Chad Ehler was fouled at the other end of the floor and hit a free throw to provide South with a 2 point win – 44 to 42.

“I thought it was a very good win for us,” said coach Augspurger after the game, “We got a win against a team in the top half of our league on the road. It was a tight game, and Jacob Bassler had a huge 4^th quarter. We struggled to score, Bassler had 25 and Mike Meyers had 11 and so between them was the bulk of our scoring. It was one of our better defensive efforts.”

South traveled to Brookville the following night. And it is tough to play two emotional games back to back – in the first quarter it seemed like South might have spent all their emotional energy at Mississinawa Valley. Brookville came out hard and intense in the first quarter, and rang up 22 points on the Panthers. Something that the normally stingy Panthers don't often do.

South played even with Brookville the remainder of the game and made a couple of runs at them, but couldn't overcome the deficit. They pulled to within 5 points of the Blue Devils once and in the 4^th quarter they were at 7 points down but once they saw the Panthers in the rearview mirror, they went into high gear and pulled ahead. The Panthers fell 67-55.

“I thought that in the 1^st quarter that they brought more energy than we did.” commented coach Augspurger, “This game and Talawanda are the only two games where I really felt that the other team came in much more inspired at the start than we did. Both of those two teams were bigger than us and physically better – and if you can't match that, then you can't be the team that brings less energy. “

Next up for South is a game against a resurgent Franklin Monroe who has a transfer that is now active and a freshman who can score, “Franklin Monroe is playing better. They had some struggles at the start of the year. They started like 2-6. But they have a freshman, Ethan Conley, who is coming into his game and scored 32 points recently. This is not going to be an easy game.”