FORT WAYNE - Chad Hoffer scored and created and Kevin Kindig dominated the boards as Tippecanoe Valley earned a trip to the Class 3A NorthWood Regional. Valley won its third straight sectional title Saturday night, defeating Norwell 53-39 in the championship game at Fort Wayne Wayne High School."Hoffer did a great job tonight. He had a couple of key rebounds and he took the ball to the basket and scored some key points," Valley Coach Bill Patrick said.
"That Hoffer kid is a Division I player. He has the ability to take his game to an all new level. He is going to take that team very far," Norwell Coach Doug Hicks said.
Hoffer led all players with 23 points, including 14 in the second half allowing Valley to pull away. Hoffer also had six steals and four rebounds in the game.
"We gave Norwell some problems, both with our half court and full court defense. We did a nice job keeping their scoring down," Patrick said.
Valley held Norwell to 0-of-8 shooting in the third quarter to begin to pull away. The Vikings led by as much as 17 points in the fourth quarter, holding a 45-28 advantage with 4:02 left in the game.
"The kids had the green light to shoot. We just couldn't seem to get our shots to fall in the first three quarters. Valley did a nice job defending," Hicks said.
Kindig scored 12 points to add to the Valley total but his key contribution was rebounding. Kindig pulled down 12 rebounds to lead both teams.
"We did an excellent job rebounding tonight. Kindig was all over the place and did a great job boxing out Norwell's big men. (Steven) Tillman grabbed some key rebounds as well." Patrick said.
Tillman came off the bench to add six rebounds. He also scored 10 points.
Jerrod Parker held Norwell big man Matt Terhune to 3-of-13 shooting and seven points for the game.
"Parker did a great job of defending Terhune tonight. That is two nights in a row that we depended upon him to hold the big man down," Patrick said.
Norwell jumped out to a 6-0 lead to start the game. Valley scored its first basket with 3:18 left in the first when Parker rebounded a miss shot by Kindig and scored his only points of the night.
Valley took a 10-8 lead at the end of the first quarter when Hoffer hit two straight three-point baskets. Valley led 18-14 at the half.
Frustration began to take over in the second half for Norwell. The game became rough on both sides of the court as the fouls began to mount up for the Knights.
Valley led by a 29-19 margin late in the third quarter as Tillman put in a basket on a miss by Adam Nelson. Valley led 33-20 at the end of three quarters of play.
"We were getting some good looks at the basket and we were getting some mediocre looks. The ball was just not falling for us," Hicks said.
After Valley took a 45-28 lead, Norwell began to chisel away at the lead. Chandler Harnish hit two three-point baskets and cut the Valley lead to 45-34. Harnish finished the game with 13 points to lead the Knights.
Hoffer then went coast to coast and scored on a layup to run the lead back to 47-34. Norwell never got closer than 11 points the rest of the way.
"We just didn't want to let Norwell get into their type of game. Norwell is a solid basketball team and have some very good talent. The kids just did a nice job keeping them from playing Norwell ball,"Patrick said.
Patrick continued. "Our kids came out the last two nights and played 32 solid minutes both games. The key to tonight's game was definitely our rebounding,"
Valley outrebounded Norwell 28-16.
Valley will travel to Nappanee Saturday to take on Jay County in the first game of the NorthWood Regional.
"We will go down to NorthWood and we will have a good showing. We have a great group of kids and I think we can maybe win another regional title," Patrick said.
Hoffer added. "I think we can win and hopefully play Wawasee again for the title."
The Vikings fell 77-70 to Wawasee in the final game of the regular season. Because of Wawasee's girls team playing the in the state finals Saturday, Wawasee's boys team will play NorthWood tonight in the sectional championship. The Wawasee-NorthWood winner will play Fort Wayne Bishop Luers at noon in the second semifinal game of the NorthWood Regional.
T. VALLEY 53, NORWELL 39
Norwell 8 6 6 19 Ð 39
T. Valley 10 8 15 20 Ð 53
Norwell FG FT R S Pts.
*Harnish 4-14 3-4 3 2 13
*Reed 1-2 0-0 1 0 2
*Archibold 1-4 9-9 3 2 12
*Terhune 3-13 1-3 8 1 7
*Harris 1-1 1-2 1 2 3
McGrew 1-3 0-0 0 0 2
Totals 11-37 14-18 6 7 39
T. Valley FG FT R S Pts.
*Hoffer 6-13 8-8 4 6 23
*Parker 1-2 0-0 2 1 2
*Kindig 1-5 10-11 12 1 12
*Nelson 1-3 1-2 4 1 3
*Salyer 1-3 0-0 2 0 2
Tillman 4-6 1-4 6 0 10
Scherzer 0-2 1-2 0 0 1
Totals 16-34 21-26 28 9 53
Three-point goals - Norwell 3-16 (Harnish 2-8, Archibold 1-5, McGrew 0-1, Reed 0-1, Terhune 0-1), T. Valley 4-12 (Hoffer 3-6, Tillman 1-2, Kindig 0-1, Scherzer 0-1, Nelson 0-2). Turnovers - Norwell 15, T. Valley 17. Fouls - Norwell 21, T. Valley 12. Fouled out - Reed (Norwell).
