SYRACUSE — In his return to the court, Wawasee senior Jacob Thompson struggled with his shot, but helped his team to a win in other ways. Coming back from his second shoulder surgery in two seasons, the 6-foot-5 standout was 6 of 21 from the field, scoring 14 points, but had nine rebounds, six steals and five assists in an 80-61 home win over Fairfield Tuesday night. “I just think he wanted it really, really bad,” Wawasee boys basketball coach Phil Mishler said of Thompson, who missed five-straight free throws at one point. “Sometimes, it just doesn’t happen. When you sit out almost an entire season, when you know you should be playing, you want to do well (in your return). Sometimes you just push too hard.” Thompson started out strong, making two of his first three shots, while also getting two rebounds, two steals and an assist in the opening quarter. However, his shot began to stray in the second, when he went 0 of 7 from the field and 0 of 4 at the free throw line, while he also committed a lane violation on another missed attempt. But he wasn’t the only Wawasee Warrior struggling in the stanza. Leading 22-16 going into the second quarter, Wawasee missed its first 12 three-pointers, which helped the Fairfield Falcons tie things at 27-27 with 2:45 remaining. With the game knotted, freshman Jeffrey Moore entered the game and drilled a three-pointer, his first of two in the quarter, off an assist from Thompson. “We sort of have a situation where, whether or not he has the ball, there’s going to be three people concerned with him,” Mishler said of Thompson. “Just a kick out (from him) is going to give us an open look. Hopefully, as well as we shoot the ball, that will be enough to get those threes off. He recognized that he wasn’t scoring, but he was getting the ball where it needed to be. That was a relief.” Moore’s three-point shots gave Wawasee some breathing room at the half, but he wasn’t the only new Warrior to hit a big shot. Entering the season, only Thompson, senior Ryndan Aaron and sophomore Alex Clark have real varsity experience, but some of the new guys showed they could be depended on in the season opener. After Fairfield drew within 38-31 early in the second half, sophomore Jake Hutchinson, ignited a 10-0 run with a three-pointer. “Those guys can shoot and we know they can shoot,” Mishler said. “We just have to teach them the rest of the game.” Sophomore Gage Reinhard also hit two three-pointers during an 11-0 fourth quarter run that increased the Wawasee lead from 65-56 to 76-56. In his first varsity game, Reinhard scored nine points and had four assists, while sophomore Stori Bright was also strong in his first varsity game, scoring 10 points and hauling in five rebounds. “I thought we played hard and did what we are capable of doing for a first game,” Mishler said. “We’re going to have to work on our presses and positioning, as far as where we need to be and recovering and transition defense. For the most part, I was happy with how hard they played for so many young players, with some of them just coming from eighth grade and other ones just never playing a varsity or JV game. I was happy with the intensity.” Clark led Wawasee with 19 points on 7-of-11 field-goal shooting to go with five rebounds and four steals. Once again using its helter skelter-type play, Wawasee forced 31 turnovers, while only committing 11 of its own. “It’s a pretty simple game plan against Wawasee – you have to take care of the basketball and you have to get the ball inside against their press to get layups,” Fairfield coach Troy Beachy said. When Fairfield did beat the press, the layups were there, as the Falcons made 24 of 44 field goal attempts. “We knew they were going to turn us over,” Beachy said. “We told the guys, ‘There’s going to be times when you turn it over, but then (when we break the press), we need to turn those into layups.’ We were able to get some, just not enough.” Wawasee ended the game making 29 of 73 field goals and just 15 of 50 three-pointers, but in the end, it was enough to win. Up next for Wawasee is Saturday night’s contest at Angola.
