SOUTH WHITLEY - After spending the past two seasons coaching Valparaiso High School, Chris Benedict returned to Columbia City, picking up right where he left off - beating the Whitko Wildcats.
With Benedict gone, Whitko won the last two games over its Whitley County rival, but with him back, the Columbia City Eagles got a convincing 67-56 win at Whitko Wednesday, extending his personal win streak over Whitko to 12 games."In a lot of ways, it felt like it was my first game," Benedict said of returning to Columbia City after having coached there for 11 years prior to leaving for the 2007-08 season. "It really did.
"I'm happy to be back," he added. "My family's happy to be back. We're here because we want to be. It's just a special place to be."
Benedict should also be happy for the balance on this year's squad, as the Eagles had six players score at least seven points, led by senior Brice Lantz's 16, followed by sophomore Brandon Gay's 14, senior Chris Bachelder's 10, senior Matt Schmidt's nine, junior Tyler Mosher's eight and freshman Drew Benedict's seven.
"Our balance was really, really good tonight," Benedict said.
"They're just average guys who do a lot of the intangibles really well," he added about his squad. "When you do that, you have a chance at having a special team."
On the flip side, Whitko coach Rob Irwin could only wish for that balance.
Entering the season, he had hoped his sophomore son Logan Irwin would score less, instead deferring to his teammates for points, but that didn't happen in the season opener.
"Everything I had hoped wouldn't be, kinda looks like that's the way it is," Irwin said.
On the night, Logan Irwin hit 11 of 23 shots, including a 9-for-14 night at the free-throw line, scoring 32 of his team's 56 points.
"Logan just completely battled and kept us at least where we were within striking distance the whole night," Irwin said. "If we have to rely on him to do that every night, it's going to be a long year. We're going to beat some people just because he is decent, but we aren't going to beat a good team that has five guys."
Whitko senior Travis Lepper did score 12 points, but the scoring took a dip from there as junior Zac VanDeWater had the team's third-highest point total with four.
"I told our guys we have four guys that played really hard and some of the guys that need to play really hard didn't," Irwin said. "I think the four guys that played really hard, played really well."
Irwin did see one area of balance on his team, but it wasn't a positive stat as no one appeared to be able to hit a three-point bucket. On the night, Whitko hit just one of its 21 shots behind the three-point arc, while Columbia City connected on eight of its 16 tries.
Although the box score may not be filled with their big numbers, Irwin was pleased with the effort of junior Max Elder, freshman Alex Stoddard and sophomore Derek Snep.
"Derek's never going to score much, but he's going to rebound and he's going to defend," Irwin said of Snep, who scored two points and grabbed five rebounds to go with three blocked shots. "I thought he played great."
Those guys may have played great, but Logan Irwin had the point production to go with his hustle, knocking down four of his six first-quarter shots and scoring 11 of the Wildcats' first 13 points to keep his team close early.
However, in the second quarter, Columbia City began to show its balance with Lantz, Gay and Benedict each hitting a three-pointer and Bachelder scoring six points in the paint, extending the Eagles lead to 33-21 at the half.
Irwin once again put the team on his back in the third quarter, scoring 10 points of Whitko's 20 points in the quarter, cutting the deficit to 44-41 going into the final quarter.
Columbia City attempted to slow Irwin down with a 3-2 zone, but he was still able to get to the rim for the basket or draw contact and get to the free throw line, frustrating Benedict in the process.
"Logan's just such a great penetrator," Benedict said. "He's just hard to guard with one guy. He's just a really good basketball player. He shoots free throws well, he reads the floor well, he's unselfish. He's just a really good player and he's hard to handle with one guy. When we went to the zone, we were just able to keep more eyes on him and keep track of him a little bit better."
The fourth quarter saw Irwin score another 11 points, but Columbia City went 14 of 16 at the charity stripe, extending its lead and taking the win.
"There were times in that third quarter, after we were up 12 or 14 at halftime, and they cut it to three, our guys could have said, 'Oh, here we go again,'" Benedict said. "They didn't. They hung in and they battled."
And in the end, the Eagles' balanced attack eventually overwhelmed the Wildcats as Irwin began getting leg cramps late in the contest.
"It's all of us against them, it's not one of us against them," Benedict said. "Our guys have really bought into that. If we continue to get that kind of balance, it's going to be good for us the rest of the year."
Columbia City will get its next shot at a balanced attack when the Eagles host Warsaw Saturday, while the Wildcats look for more balance Saturday at Leo.
COLUMBIA CITY 67, WHITKO 56
C 12 21 11 23 - 67
W 11 10 20 15 - 56
CC - Brice Lantz 4-6 5-12 16, Brandon Gay 2-6 8-9 14, Matt Schmidt 3-9 2-2 9, Chris Bachelder 5-8 0-0 10, Tyler Mosher 2-4 4-6 8, Drew Benedict 2-4 2-2 7, Andy Moog 0-0 0-0 0, Drew Hinen 1-2 0-0 3, Max McConnell 0-0 0-0 0, Cole Smith 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 19-39 21-31 67.
