They play pretty good defense…Drake Ahrens stripped a turnover at Minster guard Cole McClurg’s expense. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Versailles continues to win and impress doing it…defense stifling in Friday win over Minster…Wildcats struggle to score, even at the foul line.
Versailles, OH – No one needed to tell Minster coach Mike McClurg that he needed a win Friday night…in his home community of Versailles, and against his high school alma mater.
He knew it, despite the Wildcats winning four of their last five outings, and narrowly losing to highly regarded Spencerville last week in a game they should have won. They’ve yet to win their first conference game!
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“The problem was,” former University of Texas coach Abe Lemons once said candidly, “No one told the other team we needed to win.”
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It’s true. No one told Versailles, who came out Friday night with another impressive effort on both ends of the court and soundly spanked Minster 67-43, notching their ninth win of the year while dropping the Wildcats’ record to 6-5, and 0-3 in MAC play.
And dropping McClurg’s mood, post-game, as well.
“Well, I’ve yet to win a game at my alma mater,” he mused. “But I think they’re pretty good…very good. Obviously, Drake (Ahrens) puts a lot of pressure on your defense, but coming in we thought we’d be pretty good in our zone. But we had a lot of missed assignments, we turned the ball over too much in the first half, and at the end of the day they made shots and we didn’t.”
McClurg is a veteran at saying a lot with few words. But specifically to his point…Versailles was good. Very good.
Drake Ahrens was disruptive on defense, dynamic on offense, and lit up the gym with a pair of roman candle dunks off turnovers in the open court, one in each half, to delight the crowd and fan the feeding frenzy of his teammates.
Versailles guard Drake Ahren excited the crowd with a pair of dunks off Minster turnovers.
Maddox Stonebraker, the junior 6’8″ post player who’d rather step out behind the arc and shoot threes than dunk, did just that. He made four of six from behind the arc to account for 12 of his team-high 18 points.
Kale Schwartz returned after missing time with an ankle sprain to hit a pair of threes…an additional six points in the lineup that the Tigers didn’t have in last Saturday’s win over Brookville.
The defense, always the first word out of Versailles coach Travis Swank’s mouth, played Minster big man Cole Albers to the brink of abject frustration, holding him to 14 points, and sending him to the bench with his fifth foul with 6:00 left in the game.
And the offense, which relies on Ahrens’ distribution skills and collective sharing of the basketball, hit 8 of 17 shots from three-point range, shot 51% overall from the field, and cashed 11 of 13 attempts from the foul line (84.5%).
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“Defense travels,” added Swank. “And that’s why we believe we’re a quality team this year. Every single night we feel like our defensive effort is going to give us a chance to win. But we have to get better. We know that. We’re going to have to tweak some things because teams are looking at us on film and will try to exploit some of our weaknesses.
Versailles’ defensive commitment frustrated Minster’s Cole Albers, who scored 14, but fouled out early in the fourth quarter.
“They (Minster) are a very talented team. Albers and McClurg have played for four years so they know how to play and they have other shooters that can scare you at times. But we’re happy with our performance tonight and hopefully we continue to get better.”
But for one night, in early January, they were better from the jump, leading 15-9 at the end of the first quarter and 32-21 at the end of the first half. Insult to injury, an Ahrens three-pointer at the halftime buzzer was the omen declaring that it wasn’t going to be Minster’s night.
And Versailles’ defense held Minster to just three points for the first four minutes of the third quarter while the Versailles offense shot 5 of 11 from the floor and outscored Minster 16 to 9. Conspicuous throughout was the willingness and confidence of Stonebraker to play away from the rim and make three-point shots…another conundrum for Minster’s defensive effort.
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“We didn’t have any trouble with Minster’s zone,” said Stonebraker. “And when you’ve got Drake running the point that helps a lot. He penetrates beyond the foul line so easily and it just creates shots. All we have to do is knock them down.”
Maddox Stonebraker connects on the first of his four three-pointers, finished with a game-high 18 points.
And would Stonebraker rather shoot from the perimeter than bang and dunk from baseline?
“I guess so,” he smiled. “But it’s just preparation. You put in the hours, shooting every day…that’s what it’s all about. Teams don’t expect me to step out and make that shot.”
Stonebraker would lead all scorers with 18 points, while Ahrens chipped in 12 and Reed Raterman had 11. Schwartz and Ethan Wilker each had 6, Blake Monnin came back from his own foot injury to add 7, Cam Ahrens had 4 and Simeon Hess concluded the Tigers’ scoring with 2.
For Minster, Cole Albers would lead them with 14 (8 in the first half), Cole McClurg had 9, Andrew Ketner had 8, Taylor Fancher had 4, and Andrew Wiss had 3 to highlight the Wildcats’ offense. Unofficially, Minster simply struggled to score, shooting just 31% from the floor, and 45% from the foul line (5 of 11). Not nearly good enough to beat a team playing like Vesailles has since their lone loss to Northmont back on December 9, numbering at this point seven wins in a row.
Versailles is now off for a week before playing Coldwater next Friday night, and league-wise, their upcoming dates with Delphos St. John (January 30) and Marion Local (February 10) begin to loom larger with each passing win, as if to qualify just how good this team can be with their defense, sharing the basketball, and collective confidence.
Minster’s Mike McClurg has yet to win a game as the ‘Cats’ coach at his alma mater, Versailles High School.
“Well, we’re taking it one game at a time,” smiles Swank. “We’ll see when we get there, but right now our focus is on Coldwater. We beat a good quality team tonight, and I think we’re a good quality team. We’ve got some depth, some size, we got some shooters, we can play defense, and we’re getting healthier. We just want to be playing well next week when we go into Coldwater.”
Back to needing a win, McClurg and the Wildcats went home Friday for a quick change of mindset as they go back on the road Saturday night to play Botkins, which suffered its own embarrassing loss earlier in the week to Marion Local (66-33).
“It is what it is,” said McClurg. “Seems like every time we come to Versailles we get blitzed, but you just gotta’ take it on the chin and move forward.
“We got Botkins tomorrow night and they’re mad about losing to to Marion on Tuesday. We’ll see how we respond. This is just a small part of the season.”
And just another notch for Versailles.
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