SOUTH WHITLEY – Last season there was a stark difference between the Whitko and Columbia City boys basketball teams. It was clear which side had been working together as a program, and which side had been thrown together pretty much at the last minute. This year, not so much. The Eagles, led by brothers Brachen and Parker Hazen, beat the Wildcats 69-51 Wednesday night in South Whitley, but for the game’s first 12 minutes it was a lot closer. Columbia City’s lead was just six points before it closed the half on a 20-7 run, then opened the second half with a 10-0 spurt to squash any thoughts of a comeback by the home team. In the first 12 minutes the lead changed hands five times. Whitko struggled from the opening tip to contain the 6-foot-8 senior Brachen Hazen and his 6-foot-7 junior brother Parker. The duo got Whitko’s low-post players in foul trouble, and twice the game was stopped for an injured Wildcat. “We got two ‘bloods’ (stoppages in play due to blood on the floor, which requires the injured player to leave the game for treatment) and two foul troubles at the same time,” said Wildcat head coach Roger Fleetwood. “We had three of our guys leave the floor at the same time, and that’s when they started their run that was the difference in the game. We needed the cohesiveness offensively and defensively that we lost in those four minutes.” Fleetwood was taking nothing away from the 11th-ranked (Class 3A) Eagles. Parker Hazen finished with 26 points and seven rebounds, while Brachen had a double-double with 17 points and 14 boards. Senior guard Cooper Parish hit four three-pointers for 12 points and gave the Eagles an effective inside-outside attack. “That’s a really good basketball team; a really seasoned basketball team,” Fleetwood said of Columbia City. “It’s one thing to be a good basketball team; it’s another to have a lot of minutes under your belt and then have two Division I, 6-8 kids on the other side that you don’t match up well with. But I was very, very proud of my kids and how hard they played, how they kept fighting the whole game. “We wouldn’t have dared play man (to-man defense) last year, and this year we said ‘we’re going to play 32 minutes of man, and learn how to do this.’ We knew we’d have our matchup problems, but whatever hurt us tonight would help us down the road. We need to see how good we need to be defensively.” After last year’s 73-16 debacle in Columbia City, Fleetwood said “I was glad they had to call some timeouts. Last year they beat us so bad so fast, it was like a win for us that they actually had to call a timeout because they didn’t like the way things were going. “This game will make us better. How many teams will start off with Columbia City and end with NorthWood? Who (in Class 2A) wants to play them anytime of the year? We played the first one after only 14 practices, and we’ll play the last one just before we go to sectional. I’m hoping like heck it snows like a son-of-a-buck in February and there’s no time left for that one.” Whitko junior Nate Walpole finished with a game-high 31 points. Tanner Gaff and Colin Craig pulled down five rebounds each in the loss. The Wildcats open Three Rivers Conference play Dec. 4 when they host Wabash.
COLUMBIA CITY 69, WHITKO 51 CC 14 26 18 11 – 69 W 10 11 14 16 – 51 Columbia City – Brachen Hazen 5-7 6-10 17, Parker Hazen 8-10 10-12 26, Robert Warrick 2-3 0-1 4, Cooper Parish 4-8 0-0 12, Matt Benedict 1-3 0-0 2, Spencer Klimek 0-1 0-0 0, Jordan Bechtold 1-4 0-0 2, Luke Schraeder 0-1 0-0 0, Andrew McFarland 1-3 0-0 2, Rob Wood 0-0 0-2 0, Ryan Mosher 0-1 4-6 4, Carson Reed 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 22-41 20-31 69. Whitko – Tanner Gaff 1-5 1-1 3, Devon Adkins 2-8 0-0 6, Roger Helbig 1-1 0-0 2, Nathan Walpole 10-24 6-7 31, River West 2-4 0-0 5, Alex Bechtold 0-0 0-0 0, Hunter Sroufe 0-0 0-0 0, Robby Owsley 0-2 0-0 0, Alex Robbins 0-2 0-0 0, Colin Craig 0-1 1-2 1, Spencer Sroufe 1-3 0-0 3. Totals 17-50 8-10 51. Three-pointers – Columbia City 5 (Parish 4, B. Hazen), Whitko 9 (Walpole 5, Adkins 2, West, S. Sroufe); Rebounds – Columbia City 31 (B. Hazen 14), Whitko 33 (Adkins 5, Craig 5); Turnovers – Columbia City 11, Whitko 15; Fouls – Columbia City 19, Whitko 25; Fouled out – Gaff, Adkins, Craig; Records – Columbia City 1-0, Whitko 0-1 JV – Columbia City 66, Whitko 32 Whitko scoring – Spencer Sroufe 21, Shad Ebbinghouse 3, Cody Swink 3, Robby Owsley 2, Alex Robbins 2, Tim Gensch 1.
