New Bremen’s Wyatt Weidner fights through traffic to the rim and a pair of points during Saturday’s 57-36 win over Anna. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Less than twenty four hours after the worst imaginable outcome, New Bremen totally flipped the script to correct Friday’s transgressions in a 57-36 win over Anna.
New Bremen, OH – You know the saying…what goes around, comes around?
Well, maybe you don’t know it like New Bremen basketball coach Cory Stephens knew it after Friday night’s frustrating debacle at the hands of Versailles. But take our word for it…nothing motivates like the frustration of playing great defense, but you can’t shoot. The Cardinals shot just over 30% in a blowout loss to Versailles on Friday, and you could tell from the early opening tip against Anna on Saturday..that what goes around was about to come around at the expense of the 2-2 Rockets.
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New Bremen hit its first five shots from the field, including three three-pointers on its way to 13-0 run, and defensively swallowed up the overwhelmed Rockets…a bit of what Stephens’ Cardinals had felt the night before. This time it was Anna that couldn’t shoot, and didn’t score until 13-2 on a fortunate baseline layup…and at one point was down 17-2. New Bremen would end up hitting 5 of 8 three-pointers, and ended the quarter with its best eight minutes of basketball yet this year…leading 25-6.
Anna never recovered, ultimately suffering a 57-36 loss, its second in as many days, and afterwards coach Nate Barhorst admitted as much…it’s really hard to play the game when you can’t shoot, can’t rebound, and can’t handle the ball – turnovers!
“I don’t know what you would say about it, exactly,” said Barhorst, whose Rockets lost the previous night in league play to Botkins. “But we’re going to get better. That’s a good team [New Bremen] – very athletic. Their defense gets after it, and they shot well tonight.”
New Bremen’s Gavin Quellhorst stops the shot attempt of Anna’s Brady Wenning.
To their credit, the Rockets improved marginally in the second quarter to trail 35-11 at halftime.
And to their credit, as well, Anna is a team with size, some athleticism, and young competitiveness and showed that in the second half. After shooting 5 of 19 in the first half (26%), they outscored New Bremen 14 to 5 in the third quarter while hitting on 6 of 13 shots (46%) and forced the Cardinals to turn the ball over in the manner they had done to Anna in the first half. Barhorst acknowledged the difference.
“We came out against their zone in the first half and just lost our minds,” he said with a smile. “When we slowed down and took care of the ball in the third quarter we played much better. We played right with them.”
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A good object lesson, but object lessons don’t necessarily win basketball games…the equivalent of a moral victory.
Anna showed some defense of is own, blocking the shot attempt of Bremen’s Lukas Lennartz.
But the story of the night was the turnaround by New Bremen, an athletic team that plays aggressively out of their 2-3 zone, and on nights when they shoot the ball – like junior Gavin Dicke did (12 points on 5 of 9 from the floor) – they can be a headache for any area team in Divisions V, VI, and VII.
“We take pride in the way we play defense,” said Dicke, afterwards. “Like we played last night. But last night we couldn’t shoot it. Tonight we played defense and we shot the ball, too. It’s a lot more fun to play the game when you do both.”
Anna eventually cut the New Bremen advantage down to twelve points, but another run by the Cardinals to close the third quarter expanded their lead back to 40-25, and Anna would not further threaten in the final quarter, while matching the Cardinals offensively, 11 to 11.
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For Anna, A.J. Barhorst and Rylan Platfoot both scored 14 points (28 of their 36 as a team), while Carter Wenning had 4, Brady Wenning and Logan Ziegenbusch each finished with 2 points.
New Bremen’s Charles Nelson scores over the defensive effort of Anna’s Logan Ziegenbusch.
For New Bremen, eight different players scored, led by Dicke’s 12 points and 11 by Wyatt Weidner. Gavin Quellhorst finished with 9, Aaron Wuebker had 8, Charles Nelson and Ryan Leichliter each had 6, Lucas Lennartz had 3 and Tommy McNaughton had 2.
The Cardinals bounced back from the shooting dumps on Friday to finish the. game shooting 47.8%, and defensively forced 16 turnovers by Anna.
Cory Stephens smiled appreciatively as he scanned the scorebook after the game.
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“The game is a lot better when you can score,” he smiled, echoing the words of Gavin Dicke. “Last night we did a lot of things right on defense, and enough to win on most nights if we can score. Tonight we came out and shot the ball and our defense was good again.”
Bottom line, the season’s early, New Bremen is a good basketball team when they put it together, and chances are…they’re not going to have many nights when they shoot 3 of 18 from three-point range like they did on Friday.
Stephens also has the luxury of calculating a win over the weekend until the Cardinals play Hardin Northern on Tuesday.
Nate Barhorst? He has the anxiety of calculating the worst start to a basketball game he’s witnessed in years…between now and Tuesday when the Rockets host Fort Loramie.
You can look it up – Old Testament stuff. Basketball is so much more fun when you can shoot.
And if it isn’t in there…it should be.
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