DUNLAP – After winning five straight against the Concord boys basketball team prior to last year's sectional, the tables seem to have turned on the Warsaw Tigers. After ending Warsaw’s season with a 44-33 loss in the Elkhart Sectional last year, the Concord Minutemen handed the Tiges their first Northern Lakes Conference setback this year, winning 61-46 Saturday at McCuen Gym in Dunlap. “It was probably our best game of the whole year, just putting everything together,” Concord coach Steve Austin said. “The crowd was great. Everybody was into it. All we talked about was playing hard, win or lose. As long as you play hard, everything else will take care of itself. I think we have the talent to beat almost anybody we play, if we play hard.” The win keeps Concord’s pulse alive in the NLC race, improving to 9-3 overall and 2-2 in the conference, while Warsaw now sits at 11-2 and 3-1 in the NLC. The loss was also Warsaw’s first NLC road loss since a 77-63 defeat against Elkhart Memorial on Feb. 4, 2008 at North Side Gym. “In that stretch, to go through and win 11 conference games in a row on the road is pretty special,” Warsaw coach Doug Ogle said about his message to seniors Jordyn Coon and Lucas Grose after the loss. Going up against Concord’s frontcourt of 6-foot-7, 265-pound senior Jason Spriggs and 6-6, 235-pound junior Franko House, Warsaw needed a big game from their 6-6 big man, senior Lucas Grose. The problem was, the Minutemen also knew who they needed to stop, holding Grose to 4-of-10 shooting for 13 points, which led the Tigers. “The only one we really wanted to make everyone aware of was Grose,” Austin said. “We wanted to get two people on him every time he touched the ball. When we did that, I thought we did a pretty good job stopping him. Watching the film and seeing him in action, he’s done a great job this year of beating people to the hole.” Grose also managed just four rebounds, as the larger Minutemen held a 32-21 advantage on the boards, a stat that didn’t get past Ogle. “I’m disappointed in our rebounding effort,” he said. Helping the Minutemen to their rebounding advantage was House, who posted a game-high nine rebounds But rebounding wasn’t the only thing House was doing, as he matched Grose’s 13-point night on 5-of-7 shooting, while also posting a game-high five assists. “He’s a good player,” Ogle said about House. “He reads the defense well. He had five assists, zero turnovers, 13 points and nine rebounds. That’s a heck of a game by him. And, he scored 13 points on only seven shots. “He’s big time, he added. “He’s really good.” Four of House’s assists came in the third quarter, when Concord outscored Warsaw 22-15, extending a 22-18 lead into a 44-33 advantage going into the fourth quarter. Once into the fourth, Warsaw cut the lead to 44-35 following a bucket by sophomore Jordan Stookey, but Concord then went on an 11-2 run, which was punctuated by a slam dunk down the lane by House. On the play, which gave Concord a 55-37 lead with 3:24, House took the ball at the free throw line, drove the ball to the lane, then to almost everyone’s surprise, went into another gear to slam it on the Warsaw defenders. The play made the homecoming crowd go nuts and also made the Concord coaching staff feel pretty good. “He’s starting to grasp the idea of how I want him to play hard and go over people,” Austin said about House. “That dunk was just a statement. “He doesn’t realize how good he can be,” he added. “He really doesn’t. He’s still just this nice kid - a great kid. When he plays hard, he’s unstoppable - I think.” The dunk also spelled the end for Warsaw, which know must dust itself off with back-to-back NLC games coming up, travelling to NorthWood Friday and Elkhart Memorial on Feb. 3. “It wasn’t a good night for us, but we will forge on,” Ogle said. “We can still be a factor in the conference with just one loss.” The loss still leaves Warsaw in second place in the NLC, with Memorial still undefeated at 4-0 and Plymouth in third at 2-1, while Concord and Goshen each sit at 2-2. As they move forward, Ogle would like to see the 16 turnovers against Concord be an anomaly, which can also be said for the 16-of-43 shooting (37 percent), while Concord made 24 of 48 (50 percent). “We got sped up and (Concord) was really good tonight,” Ogle said. “We were not solid enough in our decision making. We need to play more as a team than we did.” And just as Concord fell to Warsaw in last season’s regular season, Warsaw wouldn’t mind following last season’s trend, which ended with Concord getting the win in the sectional, if the two were to meet again. “We’ll just have to try to get better,” Ogle said about a potential rematch at the Elkhart Sectional. “It will be a situation in which there won’t be any pressure on us to beat them after they shellacked us here.”
