Last night brought in more clues and some mystery on the NECC boys basketball race. At the Jungle in Albion, this game highlighted Saturday night’s action across the NECC. Let’s take a look at how the game of the week went and any further notes on the games outside of this one.
Boys Basketball
Westview (2-2, 1-1 NECC) 68 Central Noble (2-1, 1-1 NECC) 57
1st 18-5 Westview
2nd 21-18 CN
Halftime 36-26 Westview
3rd 16-14 CN
4th 18-15 Westview
2nd Half 32-31 Westview
In a game that was headlined by the matchup between senior Charlie Yoder of Westview and sophomore Connor Essegian of CN, it was the role players on both sides that were major contributors in this game. But, it was Westview, that came into Central Noble from the opening tipoff, and dominated most facets of the game.
Connor Essegian gave CN some boost just seconds into the game with a basket near the baseline with contact. Not even a minute into the game, it was 2-0 Central Noble. That was their only lead of the night.
Then, Charlie Yoder responds with a triple (this happened a lot in this game), and bang Westview had the lead that they would not reliquinish for the rest of this contest. The first quarter was pretty much the difference in this game solely based off of stats.
The Cougars offense was dried up, and Westview was getting hot from the perimeter led by Yoder and Egli. It felt like this was Westview’s night, and obviously vice versa for CN.
All night long, Charlie Yoder not only had an impact in this game, but he completely dominated both sides of the court. As for Central Noble, in all respect, I had absolutely no idea what they were doing.
Give Westview a ton of credit for coming out with a gameplan, and nearly shutting down CN’s attack at its entirety. The Warriors were the faster team, more energized, they responded well, and they were the ones fighting for the rebounds. They have proven that their backcourt is one of the best when they’re clicking on the offensive side of the ball
Blake Egli now has back to back 16-point games, and Drew Litwiller had a near triple-double with 7 points, 10 boards, and 7 assists. He was awesome on defense agaisnt Sawyer. 8 players contributed points for Westview, even a Lyndon Miller had 4 assists in that game for Westview.
The way the Cougars perfomed was not the Central Noble way…They showed hardly any persistence, and they seemed to be too complacent. Yes, Westview made their adjustments on defense, and made it hard on the Cougars to attack. But, the Cougars did themselves no favors by not getting to the net often.
Now, I can’t say every single player is going to be able to drive the net the same way as some of these players can. But, the problem was that there was hardly ANY interior presence whatsoever. Westview is nowhere near as big as CN’s frontcourt, but they were the ones that got to the ball more, they won way more battles in this game, and they went to the line more often than CN did.
Early on, it was Connor Essegian (with 12 points) that somehwhat kept the Cougars in this game in the first half, but Westview adjusted well and held him to nothing in the second half. Now, Myles Smith (who wasn’t even on the team roster last year) led the team with 19 points and 5 triples, so I do give him some credit for contirbuting to what he can provide.
Ryan Schroeder showed some good things in a disapointing team performance by getting 11 points and a couple triples. But, Westview held the star players in check.
Sawyer Yoder had 9 points in this game, and I hardly heard Logan Gard’s name for most of the night except for that one basket he made in the first half.
CN shot 43% from the field (that’s not bad). But…But, they were 10 of 31 (20 more than from anywhere inside the arc) from downtown accoridng to Brice Vance of KPC News. I’m sorry to burst your bubble, that is way too many 3’s to take. A lot of these attempts were contested, and they felt rushed if you ask me. That also doesn’t help that they were getting outrebounded by a “smaller” team.
On top of that, the Cougars defense was not sharp at all…too many good looks by Westview, not getting boards (again), and Charlie was getting easy looks for most of this game. Again, give them credit, but CN wasn’t sharp either.
All in all, there are a lot of things to take away from this game. Westview may not be consistently put up these kind of performances every night, but what they showed is that they can not only play with these good teams, but they can still be in the running for championships. The Warriors quickly got off to a double-digit lead, and they sustained it, which was something they didn’t do in the previous 2 occurances.
Westview has 2 very tough mathcups with Angola Friday @ Westview and University Saturday @ Grace College. We will see how the Warriors build off of this win, and if they’re able to continue to ride off of this wave of momentum. Angola’s style of basketball plus the physically talneted players of Dyer Ball and Joel Knox makes this one very interesting. Then, you have University where they’re undefeated and have some very talented players plus a pretty good size frontcourt.
For CN’s perspective, it shows that this team, in a basketball standpoint, needs to grow up. This is not the same way as telling a kid to grow up in general. Growing up as a basketball team means learning from mistakes, be willing to admit to making these mistakes, and continue to get better. Remember, this team is playing 4 sophomores in significant varsity action, their best post player graduated last year, point guard Lucas Deck is done for his senior season with an injury, and the rest of the seniors are either just role players or in the case of Myles back on the roster.
The Cougars showed flashes of being a very good team, but to be a championship team, everyone on that program has to mature and continue to learn from mistakes. There are teams that are bigger and better than Westview that they’ll have to face. The Cougars have to learn from this game and play with a lot more of an effort and poise to the net. Young teams don’t always do well with high expectations, and tonight is simply a learning lesson for this program.
This team will not succeed by taking 35-40 contested 3’s and expect the ball to go in every time. They’re capable of being a versatile team, they can play any kind of basketball that they can. But, the Cougars have to be more willing to get to the basket more often even if it means the shots won’t go down or they have to take some of that physicality.
By all means CN isn’t out of the race, but they have to show significant improvement on both sides of the ball if they’re going to stay in this race any longer. It starts with Hamilton on Tuesday and then long awaiting them will be their county rivals from Ligonier on Friday.
Additional notes from Saturday night
Busco 62 West Noble 58
Another big time win by the Eagles to stay in the NECC race after trailing at one point in the 3rd quarter 38-28. The Chargers played very well for most of this game, they rebounded the ball well, and guys like Austin Cripe and Joel Mast were balling. But, turnovers and missing some crucial free throws late hurt them in this game. Jackson Paul led the way with 28 points, including a crucial basket with 13 seconds to go to tie the game. Though he missed the free throw, Noah Wolfe quickly gets the rebound, draws the foul, and makes both free throws to give Busco the lead for good. Let’s not forget Perlich and his 17pt 8 rebound performance, but this team continues to find ways to win, even in their less than impressive performances. Now, some people would say the Chargers probably should have won this game, and the refs were bad. I saw a livestream of some of this action at Busco, and yes the officiating wasn’t great, but the Chargers made some costly mistakes that didn’t help either. If the Chargers can play as well as they did most of that game at a very difficult environment, they’ll have a chance to pull out some big time wins.
WN has CN at home for my first of two NECC games of the week in a DH, and Busco will be @ Prairie Heights for my 2nd NECC game of the week.
Prairie Heights 50 Eastside 37
The Blazers played a pretty good effort against a tough Heights team, but they were unable to slow down the star players of Malone and Perkins who contributed for 35 of the team’s 50 points. But, how about sophomore Gabe Trevino of Eastside who had 18 to lead his team. The Blazers’ record is very deceiving, but they have fought really well against 4 solid teams, including two giants in Bryon, OH and Prairie Heights. Heights is @ Whitko Wednesday before they host the Turtle Town boys. Eastside will host a rising Lakewood Park program Tuesday, travels to Lakeland Friday, and then will host a pretty good Hicksville squad that is 3-1.
Northwood 49 Fairfield 40
Northwood gets another key non conference win over a young, but scrappy Fairfield team. The Panthers were too much to handle for the Falcons, but Fairfield’s effort is becoming more and more of an eye opener as the season has gone along. Give Coach DeShone all the credit for the world in laying out the foundation in Benton. It’s starting to look like some of his scrappy Jimtown teams from back in the day. Just wait till the Falcons get more experience and talent in the coming seasons. Never take this team lightily.
Upcoming Schedule
So, like I said earlier, I will preview two different matchups for next week. I’ll first preview the CN-WN Boys/Girls DH, and then I’ll preview the Busco-Prairie Heights boys game. Now, I will bring up the girls game for a breif moment, but a lot of the coverage will mainly be focused on the boys game.
So, for the week of Dec. 27, I will have another fan poll to vote on which DH to preview for that week. I have a link below where you can vote on two of these matchups. Votes will be accepted at or before noon Wednesday, Dec. 18. By, then, I will announce which DH will get the coverage for that week. Also, you can vote multiple times as well. Fan Poll for Doubleheader of the Week
Around the NorthEast Corner 