SYRACUSE — After Friday night’s 78-48 loss at Tippecanoe Valley, Wawasee varsity boys basketball coach Phil Mishler tried a new strategy in Tuesday night’s rematch in Syracuse. Playing in the opening round of Class 3A Sectional 21 four days after meeting in their regular season finales, the Tippecanoe Valley Vikings (18-3) produced the same result, winning 65-42 at Wawasee. The Vikings will now play the Lakeland Lakers (6-15) Friday night in the semifinals, following the 6 p.m. game between NorthWood (15-6) and Fairfield (11-11). Using an up-tempo offense in Akron last week, the Wawasee Warriors (5-16) opted to slow it down this time around, and it worked for a half. Trailing 22-14 at intermission, things got away from Wawasee in the third quarter, when Valley made 9 of 11 field goals and extended its lead to 42-24 going into the fourth. In the second half, Valley made 19 of 24 shots (79 percent), helping it pull away for the win. “You knew they were going to play us different,” Valley coach Bill Patrick said. “I thought they played about the only way they could to have a chance to beat us. We just have more experience and probably a little more talent. They’re young. They do a nice job with a group of sophomores.” With junior Chase Myers sidelined with an injury, Wawasee had no seniors and just one junior on its roster. Starting five sophomores, Wawasee has had plenty of lessons to learn this year, and Tuesday’s game was just one more. “At this age, you’re teaching fundamentals,” Mishler said. “The Xs and Os kind of have to take a back seat. You just have to teach how to play the game, fundamentally, at this age. There’s not a lot of time to make big adjustments. I thought our players tried to do it the best they could.” Just over two minutes into the game, Valley held a 9-0 lead, but Wawasee did crawl within 9-7 after a bucket by sophomore David Rocha with 1:07 remaining in the first quarter. “We jumped out ahead early, and I think our guys thought this was going to be a cakewalk and we’d win by 30 and score 80 points,” Patrick said. “We kind of got into too big of a hurry. Sometimes, when a team slows it down, we tend to hurry things up on offense. It should be exactly the opposite.” With Wawasee nipping at its heels, Valley embarked on another 9-0 run, which gave it some breathing room until it broke it open in the third. “There were a couple bad decisions,” Mishler said about his team’s third quarter, when it was outscored 20-10. “When you’re playing a possession game like that, you can’t afford to mess up one possession.” Patrick said his team’s leading scorer, senior Nick Kindig, was feeling under the weather, resulting in a 2-of-3 shooting night for four points, 15 points below his average. Luckily for Valley, 6-foot-3 junior Tanner Andrews is a talent as well. Ruling the paint, posting five blocks, Andrews finished the game with 16 points on 8 of 11 shooting, while also recording 10 rebounds, two assists and two steals. Also in the paint, 6-foot-1 junior Ben Shriver continued his strong play of late, finishing with 13 points in his second career start. Sophomore point guard Alex Thacker also netted 12 points, as Valley had 10 different players score. For Wawasee, sophomore Gage Reinhard led the way with 13 points, while sophomores Jake Hutchinson and Alex Clark each netted 11. Battling Andrews in the paint, sophomore Stori Bright also shined, finishing with a game-high 12 rebounds. Ending the season on a four-game skid, Mishler was able to put the losses in perspective. “Our whole team learned something with every game,” he said. “You could see them learning. You don’t notice it when you’re around them all the time. Early in the season, we were making passes that eighth graders would make. Just lazy passes. Now, we’re able to understand the speed of the varsity game. Some of those silly things we were doing aren’t as common, but there’s still so much to work on.” Moving on, Valley must now concentrate on a six-win Lakeland team Friday, and not look ahead to a potential championship matchup with NorthWood Saturday night. “You have to win Friday or you don’t play Saturday,” Patrick said. “Nick’s a senior, (Jacob) Ritchey’s a senior, Tanner’s a junior who’s started three years, so they’ve been around long enough that they should know if you don’t show up to play (you’ll lose). I think we will (show up).”
TIPPECANOE VALLEY 65, WAWASEE 42 W 7 7 10 18 – 42 TV 11 11 20 23 – 65 Valley – Alex Thacker 4-12 1-2 12, Tanner Andrews 8-11 0-2 16, Jacob Ritchey 2-4 2-2 6, Nick Kindig 2-3 0-0 4, Ben Shriver 6-8 1-3 13, Jarred Littlejohn 2-2 0-0 4, Chainey Zolman 2-3 0-0 4, Aaron Hoffman 1-1 0-0 2, Gavin Bussard 0-0 0-0 0, Derrick Cunningham 1-1 0-0 2, Chandler O’Connor 1-1 0-0 2. Totals 29-46 4-9 65. Wawasee – Gage Reinhard 4-15 5-5 13, Jake Hutchinson 4-5 0-0 11, David Rocha 1-3 0-0 2, Alex Clark 3-10 3-4 11, Stori Bright 0-3 2-2 2, Aaron Voirol 0-1 0-0 0, Jeffrey Moore 0-1 0-0 0, Bailey Hershberger 0-0 0-0 0, Sam Clark 0-0 1-2 1, Chase Rookstool 0-0 0-0 0, Elijah Solina 1-1 0-0 2, Kody Carpenter 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 13-39 11-13 42. Three-point goals – Valley 3 (Thacker 3), Wawasee 5-13 (Hutchinson 3, A. Clark 2); Team Fouls – Valley 14, Wawasee 13; Turnovers – Valley 11, Wawasee 18; Rebounds – Valley 24 (Andrews 10), Wawasee 25 (Bright 12); Assists – Valley 14 (Ritchey 5), Wawasee 3; Steals – Valley 8 (Thacker 2, Andrews 2, Kindig 2), Wawasee 7 (Reinhard 3); Blocks – Valley 5 (Andrews 5), Wawasee 0; Records: Valley 18-3, Wawasee 5-16
