Coldwater’s Baylen Blockberger lead the scoring with 25 points in the win over Minster. (Press Pros Feature Photos By Julie McMaken Wright)
Coldwater’s Baylen Blockberger and Luke Schwieterman orchestrated a monstrous 28-point second quarter that made the difference in a 65-54 win over Minster. The duo combined for 45 points in the regular season finale.
Minster, Oh – Basketball ain’t rocket science. If you put the ball in the hole when you get open shots, you’ll probably win. If you don’t, tough luck.
That’s not exactly groundbreaking analysis, but it is the simple truth.
Alan Brads is a journalism student at Cedarville University, and writes sports at large for Press Pros.
Coldwater (17-5, 8-1) and Minster (13-9, 5-4) both got plenty of open looks, especially from three. Only the Cavaliers made ‘em count for a full four quarters. Minster kept pace for about 10 minutes until a lid covered their basket and Coldwater outstripped them for a 65-54 victory.
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At the forefront of the Cavs’ habitual shot-making were junior guard Baylen Blockberger and senior forward Luke Schwieterman. Blockberger’s diverse skill set allowed him to score just about however he wanted to. Transition, dribble drive, spot up or even from the free throw line he methodically racked up 25 points.
“Blockberger’s just as advertised,” Minster Head Coach Michael McClurg said of his adversary. “He’s good with the basketball. He got to wherever he wanted.”
You might not suspect it from a typical 6’7” forward, but Schwieterman drained three triples on the way to 20.
“That happened sometimes coming out of our traps, we were trying to take Blockberger out of the play and Schwieterman would hit a three on the back side,” McClurg said.
That’s why the value of several stars multiplies together rather than just adding up. You can only take so much away from a team as long as the stars are willing to not always have the basketball in their hands.
Perhaps the promise of those two young stars inspired the appearance of a delegation from ESPN. Seven of their youngest and rowdiest commentators sat courtside in front of Minster’s student section. One particular delinquent broadcaster held up a sign of his prediction: “Cats by 90.” I imagine his status as an analyst is probably in jeopardy.
Coldwater’s Owen Kunk blocks the shot attempt of Minster’s Cole Albers.
Those two did the heavy lifting for Coldwater, but Miles Pottkotter and Owen Kunk chipped in nine and seven.
Sophomore guard Brogan Stephey led the Wildcats with 13 points, along with 12 from forward Cole Albers.
With the final page of the regular season now turned, the Cavs find themselves second in the MAC, missing out on the conference title by the narrowest of margins to Delphos St. John’s after last week’s buzzer beater in a snow storm.
Minster’s three game conference winning streak prior to this evening bought them the top spot among the scrum for fourth place in the MAC, despite tonight’s setback.
The home side’s orange
and black had plenty to cheer for early. Stephey rattled in a three on the first possession of the game, and his favorite target in football season, James Niemeyer, perhaps demonstrated his capability as backup quarterback, tossing in a bucket on the next possession.
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The first ten minutes were just about the closest 10 minutes of basketball you’ll ever see. The largest lead in that period was Minster’s 5-2 advantage. The lead changed hands five times, and tied five more times. It was back and forth, trading buckets, trading stops, trading blocks, trading steals. It was controlled chaos, frenetic, but not frantic, speedy, but not rushed. Traps and steals led not to loose balls and tussles on the floor, but well-orchestrated fast breaks and layups. Even in the half court set the big men kept things interesting with a combined seven blocks in the first half.
Neither team could break the deadlock until the mid-second quarter when a Schwieterman three pointer handed Coldwater a 24-20 lead.
Brogan Stephey scored 13 points for Minster in the ‘Cats loss to Coldwater.
That advantage was slight by normal standards, but tonight it was the biggest one yet, and it grew like a dandelion in late April.
“We stopped hitting shots, and we didn’t do a good job guarding them,” McClurg said. “I didn’t think we did a good job guarding them all night. We had defensive breakdowns … You’ve gotta be sound defensively to beat a team like Coldwater and we were not.”
Already hot, the Cavalier offense turned up the heat and exploded to a 28 point second quarter, led by Blockberger who notched 11 in the period.
“We pride ourselves on our defense,” Schwieterman said. “We play good defense and then that allows us to get out on offense.”
Sure enough the steals and blocks on defense were as valuable as anything else in creating points on the other end of the floor.
“We were running a good offense and not forcing looks,” Schwieterman said. “When you get a clean look it’s pretty easy to score.”
Easy for a 6’7” sharpshooter to say.
There was an appearance of a delegation of ESPN’s youngest and rowdiest seven commentators that sat courtside in front of Minster’s student section.
As the away side’s orange and black got their turn to make some noise, the Wildcat offense stalled, and a wounded Minster limped to a 38-28 halftime score.
Coldwater cooled their jets in the third, but rebounded well enough to help make up for their plummeting field goal percentage. Minster couldn’t take advantage of the Cavs’ offensive lapse, scoring just nine third quarter points of their own, and the gap widened by three points heading to the fourth.
Blockberger stretched that 13 point deficit to 16 on the first possession with a jumper worth three points by about six feet.
Minster’s James Niemeyer gets aggressive with Coldwater’s Owen Kunk.
All seemed lost as the Minster student section sat down behind the faux ESPN table, but the Wildcats had one more bullet in the chamber.
A three pointer sparked Minster, and they set up a 1-2-2 trap, which forced multiple turnovers. A 9-0 run cut the lead to seven still with six minutes to go.
But it wasn’t destined to be. Miles Pottkotter dropped a bomb from behind the arc to silence the crowd and close the casket.
Coldwater got reorganized and forced a scoring drought long enough to usher the starters to the bench for the night without further incident.
Though they didn’t need it to hold their place on the league table, the win remains critical for Coldwater as it snapped a two game skid before the tournament, where the margin for error disappears.
“This is a nice way to enter the tournament, especially after last week.” Coldwater Head Coach Nick Fisher said. “That momentum is huge. I’ve been doing this for a while and they’ll have years where they die right before the tournament and then they start second guessing and questioning themselves. So a game like this springboards us into the tournament.”
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Coldwater, a four seed, will face the winner of #6 Carey and #7 Liberty Benton next Saturday at home. With a win they would almost certainly butt heads with Ottawa-Glandorf, Ohio’s top-ranked Division III team.
Minster now faces a two game slump of their own heading into the postseason.
The third seeded Wildcats took a bye, and won’t play until next Saturday, when they’ll host the winner of #7 Marion Local and #12 Goshen. If they handle business at home and everything else goes as expected, they’d see the #2 seed, St. Henry, who they took to overtime in January.
Break down every matchup in scrutinous detail if you want … or just take the easy way out and steal my non-earth shattering analysis: whichever teams make their open shots are gonna win.
Coldwater’s Luke Schwieterman shoots over Minster’s Cole Albers.
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