PLYMOUTH - Senior Michael Wienhorst once again tried to put the Warsaw varsity boys basketball team on his back, this time it was just too much for the 6-foot-2 senior to shoulder.

While junior frontliner Colin Clemens handled the bulk of the scoring through the first three quarters, pouring in 19 points, Wienhorst did all he could to bring the Tigers back in the final frame against Class 3A No. 10 Plymouth Thursday evening.

Wienhorst had his climbing boots on, so to speak; the mountain was just too tall, and his 20-point outburst in the fourth quarter was outshadowed by Plymouth's 79-66 win.

Wienhorst, who scored 12 points in the final five mintues to lead the Tigers back from a 15-point deficit in the fourth quarter to beat host Elkhart Central in mid-December, finished the game with 26 points.

Clemens also finished the game with 26 points, hitting 10 of 12 shots from the field and cashing in on all five of his charity tosses.

"Colin Clemens and Michael Wienhorst had a good game," said third-year Warsaw coach Doug Ogle. "We just had a lot of things go wrong. If we did four things wrong, Plymouth did four things right in the same span."

Nelson Conley and Mitchell Reinholt scored three points each for the Tigers, while Shaun Cabrera, Andrew Holladay, John-Wesley Maierle and Jordan Fuller scored two each.

The loss, which followed a 23-point setback at Marion Saturday, dropped the Tigers to 9-7 overall and 3-4 in the Northern Lakes Conference.

The 13-point loss gave Warsaw its first sub-.500 conference record in 17 years.

Plymouth improved to 14-3 overall and 5-2 in the NLC.

With Clemens getting easy baskets in the paint, the Tigers took a 25-24 lead into the locker room.

The third quarter, however, proved to be the most pivotal point in the game.

The Pilgrims came out with the hot hand, converting their first 11 field goal attempts of the second half and used a 17-3 run to blow the game wide open.

Listed on Plymouth's roster as 5-8, the smallest player on either team, senior Geoff Sheetz came up big for the Pilgrims during their third-quarter run.

Sheetz was 4 of 5 from the three-point line in the frame and added two free throws as well, helping the Pilgrims from a one-point halftime deficit to a 57-37 lead going into the fourth quarter.

Senior sharpshooter Kyle Benge, who entered the contest as the state's second-leading scorer with his 29.1 points per game average, scored 11 points in the third quarter and finished the evening with a game-high 32 points.

Benge, now just nine points away from breaking current Chicago Bulls coach Scott Skiles' career scoring mark at Plymouth, was 11 of 14 from the field and 9 of 11 at the charity stripe Thursday.

Sheetz finished the game 8 of 13 from the field, all of which came from the three-point arc, and was 3 of 4 at the free throw line for 27 points.

All totaled, the Pilgrims were 28 of 38 (73.7 percent) from the field as a team and averaged an amazing 1.2 points per possession.

"We talked a lot about not leaving Sheetz," said Ogle. "And I'll be darned if we didn't go out and leave him. Sheetz is good at getting open, and when he got open he made them. When a team makes 10 of 17 shots behind the three-point line, 7 of 9 in the second half, that's pretty good. We lost track of Sheetz too many times."

As a team, the Tigers were 22 of 47 (46.8 percent) from the field.

Plymouth was 20 of 22 from the field in the second half, knocking down shots inside and outside to put the Tigers away.

"They're good," Ogle said of Plymouth. "They start five seniors and they're a very good team. I guess there's a reason Jack Edison has won 490 games."

The Tigers are in action again Tuesday at South Bend Washington, and then travel to Huntington North Friday. [[In-content Ad]]