Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
LAFAYETTE - Warsaw junior varsity boys basketball coach Doug Ogle called Warsaw's 50-42 win over No. 4 Merrillville in the semifinal round of the Lafayette Jeff Semistate Saturday a chess match.
Coming into Saturday's contest, Merrillville varsity coach Jim East and Warsaw varsity coach Al Rhodes had a combined 850 wins.
Think of it as a chess match, and the fourth-ranked Pirates made the first move, and it put the Tigers in a crucial situation.
Merrillville's 6-foot-5 senior forward Jake Argenta scored the first seven points of the game, taking only three shot attempts.
"We didn't find No. 52 (Argenta) good enough," said Rhodes. "I felt that start helped us even though we were behind. From there we called a time out and switched to man-to-man. Offensively, we started seeing in the post. We gave some good feeds and made some good drives."
It was Warsaw 6'6" senior center Zach Nelson that established the Tigers in the post in the early going. After the time out, Nelson scored the next five points of the game. Coupled with a field goal by senior guard Chris Wiggins, the two teams were tied.
The eight-point loss finished Merrillville's season at 22-3. Warsaw improved to 20-4 and moved on to the semistate championship with No. 2 Marion, a 72-55 winner over Penn in the morning's first semifinal game.
After trailing 21-18 at halftime, the Tigers quickly found themselves in the same position they were in at the start of the game - down by seven.
Field goals by James Borom and Lonnie Randolph upped the Pirates' lead to 25-18.
But just as they did in the first half, the Tigers were resilient.
Warsaw senior Steve Siebenmorgen and sophomore Brad Seiss scored Warsaw's next five points to cut the lead to two, and senior Ross Kesler tied the game with a dunk that ignited the crowd.
Siebenmorgen led the Tigers in the scoring column with 16 points. He also pulled down six rebounds. Kesler finished the game with nine, while Nelson added eight and Seiss four. Junior Josh Buck finished the game with seven points off the bench.
"We started seeing Siebenmorgen under the basket in the second half," said Rhodes. "Steve did a good job of taking care of business."
The Tigers led 29-28 after three quarters of play and took care of business in the fourth quarter, connecting on 15 of 17 free throws. Warsaw finished the game 26 of 31 (83.9 percent) at the charity stripe.
"At the start of the year we were 56 percent (at the free throw line) in our first four games," said Rhodes. "Our last nine games we've been 82 percent. Ross Kesler was 52 percent at the start of the year and he's at 75 now. That means he's been at 90 percent the last nine games."
Kesler was 5 of 6 at the line in Saturday's contest with Merrillville.
WARSAW 50
MERRILLVILLE 42
Merrillville (22-3) 10 11 7 14 - 42
Warsaw (20-4) 9 9 11 21 - 50
Merrillville FG FT R A S Pts.
*Borom 2-8 0-0 3 3 0 4
*Randolph 6-11 6-9 1 0 2 19
*Smith 0-4 5-8 2 1 2 5
*Fedak 0-1 5-6 3 1 0 5
*Argenta 3-9 0-0 3 0 0 7
Smoljan 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Gore 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Montgomery 1-4 0-0 2 2 1 2
Semovski 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Johnson 0-2 0-0 1 0 0 0
Totals 12-39 16-23 19 5 5 42
Warsaw FG FT R A S Pts.
*B. Seiss 1-3 2-2 6 1 0 4
*Wiggins 2-4 2-2 2 1 1 6
*Kesler 2-4 5-6 4 0 1 9
*Siebenmorgen 4-6 8-10 6 1 1 16
*Nelson 2-6 4-5 3 1 0 8
Martin 0-1 0-0 0 0 0 0
Buck 1-2 5-6 6 0 2 7
Henthorn 0-2 0-0 0 0 1 0
Finnegan 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Rhodes 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
G. Seiss 0-0 0-0 1 0 0 0
Totals 12-28 26-31 32 5 5 50
Three-point goals - Merrillvile 2 (Randolph 1, Argenta 1), Warsaw 0. Turnovers - Merrillville 8, Warsaw 13. Fouls - Merrillville 24, Warsaw 18. Fouled out - Randolph, Fedak.
