02-11-06
BY JACK BULLOCK
DIETERICH - The old adage 'Taken to the Woodshed' sums up the Waltonville Spartans trip to the Dieterich SuperFan Shootout on a snowy Saturday evening.

The host Maroons and their top player Cliff Westendorf proved to be too much for the Spartans as the anticipated matchup of highly regarded small school teams was one-sided from the outset.

Coach Jamie VanScyoc's team sprinted out to a 14-2 lead in the early moments and buried Waltonville, 66-53 in a game that was not nearly as close the final score indicated.

Connecting on just 2-of-16 first quarter shots, the state-ranked Spartans fell behind early and never recovered in losing just their second contest of the season, both in shootouts the past two Saturday's.

Westendorf - who is headed to Lindenwood University next season to play basketball - produced yet another dominating performance in helping his club to a 22-3 record, which includes 21-consecutive wins.

The 6-foot-5 senior scored 27-points to go with 18-rebounds and six blocked shots in a game in which he was by far the best of the big men on the floor.

The Spartans (26-2) brought to the game an imposing front line but Westendorf had his way with the Mid-South Conference leaders.

"I thought that we attacked the basket from the 'get-go' and we were moving and in a flow offensively," said VanScyoc, whose team is unranked but on a roll. "We got off to a great start and were able to keep that level throughout the rest of the game."

Jumping all over the Spartans in the opening quarter, Dieterich trailed just once.

Waltonville guard Anthony Lowery drove to the basket for a score at 7:21 in the opening stanza for a 2-0 Spartans' lead.

But eight first quarter points by Westendorf and two early 3-pointers from Eric Pickens were part of a 14-0 Dieterich run that enabled the Maroons to take control.

Attacking the Waltonville defense in the first eight minutes, Dieterich scored on a pair of backdoor scores taking advantage of the Spartans overplaying Westendorf.

The Maroons top scorer added five assists to his totals with two of them going to Pickens and Brock Lidy early. When Pickens scored on a pass from the right baseline with :59 left, the lead had ballooned to 18-3 forcing Waltonville coach Mike Denault to burn his second timeout.

"They (Dieterich) shot the ball so well tonight and they defended us. I was impressed with the way they played," said Denault. "We shot too many 3's tonight but then again it seemed like everytime we took it into the lane we got blocked."

Waltonville's Jon Kash scored in the lane over Westendorf to close out the first quarter at 18-5. But Kash and his teammates got into foul trouble trying to defend Westendorf and his Maroon cohorts.

Kash went to the pine with his third foul with 3:46 to go before intermission.

His replacement Brandon Spotanski got in close for a score and a foul on Westendorf. His made free throw gave the Spartans a thimble full of hope as the Dieterich lead shrunk to 25-12.

But Westendorf, who has continued to play well in big games in his four-year prep career, got right back to work with five consecutive points.

A banking runner in the lane while being fouled by Josh Ralls and another score in the lane on the Maroons next trip produced a 30-12 lead and the reality of a blowout began to set in to the near sellout crowd.

Waltonville, on the strength of a drive to the basket by Kitowski and a 3-pointer just before the buzzer by forward Derek Tepovich cut the Spartans discrepancy down to a manageable 33-17 at the break. But the Spartans hope was shortlived.

Westendorf and Ralls traded baskets to start the second half but it was Westendorf who would put the outcome to rest in the next two minutes of the game.

This all-state candidate scored the first seven points of the third quarter for his team and in the process he helped the Waltonville foul total to escalate.

Kash and Tepovich both picked up their fourth fouls and went back to the bench and later in the run, highlighted by his rebound dunk, Westendorf got Spotanski to pick up his third personal.

For good measure, Lidy finished the 13-0 run with a pair of baskets just seconds apart and with 4:17 left in the third period a glance at the scoreboard showed Dieterich ahead by an astonishing 46-21 margin.

The Spartans managed to get back some of the deficit with Kitowski scoring seven points to close out the quarter at 52-30.

The fourth quarter had Waltonville making a run but coach Denault's team never really got into contention.

Tepovich scored on a pair of 3-pointers. On the second one Craig Niemerg fouled him and Tepovich twisted his ankle and had to be helped off of the court by his teammates. Reserve Jordan Kabat finished the four-point play making it 58-41 with 3:53 left.

Kitowski scored seven late points and finished the game leading the Spartans with 17. But he was held to just one bucket in the first half as Dieterich smothered him and his teammates to set the tone.

"We did a great job defensively on Kitowski tonight," added VanScyoc. "We had scouted them (Waltonville) and we knew he was their top scorer and we put Bobby Niemerg on him and he did a great job of defending him. He (Kitowski) scored a lot of points late but we did a good job on him for most of the game. I thought we got a hand in the shooters' faces all night."

Westendorf got a lot of help on the night with Lidy toping the rest of the Maroons with 11 points while Craig Niemerg and cousin Bobby chipped in nine and seven respectively.

The Maroons hit exactly half of their shots, connecting on 22-of-44 attempts and out rebounded Waltonville 34-28.

The Spartans put up enough shots to beat two teams but shot just 30 percent from the field (21-of-70) including just 6-of-25 from behind the arc.

Kitowski scored 17-points to lead the 26-2 Spartans while Tepovich added 11.

Other than committing 16 turnovers, Dieterich played a near perfect game in winning a SuperFan Shootout game for the second consecutive year while staying unbeaten at home at 7-0 for 2005-06.

"I'm really proud of all my kids tonight," VanScyoc added. "The kids came in tonight ready to play and this was probably the best game we have played. I felt tonight we put together four quarters. We get up for our home games because the kids don't like to lose here at home. I was really pleased with our effort."

	1	2	3	4		Total
Waltonville	5	12	13	23	-	53
Dieterich	18	15	19	14	-	66

Waltonville (53) - Owens 0 0 0-0 0, Ralls 3 0 0-0 6, Tepovich 1 3 0-0 11, Lowery 3 0 1-2 7, Kitowski 4 3 0-0 17, Kash 2 0 0-0 4, Kubiak 0 0 0-2 0, Kabat 0 0 1-1 1, Talbert 1 0 2-2 4, Spotanski 1 0 1-1 3.
2FG-15, 3FG-6, FT-5-8, PF-28.
Dieterich (66) - Westendorf 9 0 9-14 27, B. Niemerg 1 0 5-8 7, C. Niemerg 4 0 1-2 9, Pickens 1 2 3-4 11, Lidy 3 0 0-2 6, Wright 1 0 2-3 4, Teichmiller 1 0 0-0 2.
2FG-20, 3FG-2, FT-20-33, PF-16.

MOUNDS MERIDIAN 58, MARTINSVILLE 55
Behind 20-points from Marland Johnson and 13 from Jerrel Stockstill, the Bobcats made the three hour trip North worth while as they held off Martinsville in the opening game of the SuperFan Shootout.

Having lost a conference game on the road against Goreville the night before, coach Jeff Mandrell's club came up with an important non-league win and a pretty good overall performance.

"We had a tough game last night and we traveled three hours up here so I wasn't sure what to expect today," said Mandrell, who is familiar with Martinsville from his days at Oakland High School. "Martinsville was solid and I knew that from seeing them play earlier. Sometimes when you get ahead kids will relax and we let them back into the game after getting off to a good start. We just couldn't shake them today."

Rhonye Lincoln got Meridian off to a good start, scoring seven first quarter points.

Using a full-court pressure defense early, the Bobcats had Martinsville rattled.

Lincoln got two scores off of Blue Streak turnovers; his second one being a one-handed dunk that made it 6-0 with 6:21 remaining in the opening quarter.

But coach Jeff Holloway's Martinsville group never went away, hanging with the Southern Illinois invaders.

Two 3-pointers, one each from Jordan Simonton and Cody Blankenbeker, and a pair of late baskets from Matt Higginbotham cut the Meridian lead down to 27-21 at the half.

"I thought in the first quarter that we didn't adjust to the speed of the game really well," said Holloway, in his second season of leading the Martinsville program. "But we made a good run at them in the third quarter and got us back into the game."

That run produced a couple of ties late in the frame.

Six-foot senior Andy Chambers had 12-points for Martinsville with six points coming in a third quarter march that got the Streaks even.

Following a Blankenbeker 3-pointer from the top of the arc, Chambers scored after a Meridian turnover on a fast break lay in to tie the game at 34-all with 2:13 remaining.

After Meridian's Jerrel Stockstill and Martinsville's Dylan Cribelar matched scores, Stanley Johnson converted a three-point play to give the Bobcats back the lead for good at 39-36 heading into the fourth quarter.

Martinsville got within a point late in the contest but could never get the lead.

Chambers' final bucket with 2:49 left cut the lead to 50-49.

However Stockstill had a couple of important scores late in the game and Marland Johnson's eight fourth quarter points were enough to hold on to the win. A Stanley Johnson running one-handed shot with :26 left finished the Meridian scoring.

Cribelar launched a shot from beyond the half-court line that banked home at the buzzer for the final points of the game.

Marland Johnson led all scorers with 20 with Stockstill (13) Lincoln (12) and Stanley Johnson (11) all chipping in for the victory.

Meridian outrebounded the Streaks 39-27 that included a 'whopping' 23 offensive rebounds. Coach Mandrell's club was just 22-of-62 from the field, but several of those misses were the result of tip-in attempts before getting eventual stick-backs.

Coach Holloway's team is now 12-13 overall after the loss.

"We just didn't execute down the stretch tonight and that got us beat at the end," added Holloway. "I am proud of the kids. They were a bit intimidated today at first but I told them at halftime that we could play with them and we went out and played hard and stayed in the game."

The Blue Streaks were led by Cribelar with 13, Chambers with 12 and Simonton 10.

Plagued with foul problems, Martinsville senior Brogan Wolfe spent most of first two quarters on the bench and a lone 3-pointer was his only score as he never got into an offensive flow.

	1	2	3	4		Total
Mounds Meridian	20	7	12	19	-	58
Martinsville	11	10	15	19	-	55

Mounds Meridian (58) - Stockstill 6 0 1-3 13, Oats 0 0 0-0 0, S. Johnson 2 1 4-5 11, Lincoln 4 1 1-3 12, M. Johnson 8 0 4-8 20, Smith 0 0 1-2 1, Larry 0 0 1-2 1.
2FG-20, 3FG- 2, FT-12-23, PF-6.
Martinsville (66) - Cribelar 5 1 0-0 13, Simonton 2 3 0-0 10, Chambers 6 0 0-2 12, P. Higginbotham 0 1 0-0 3, Wolfe 0 1 0-0 3, M. Higginbotham 3 0 0-0 6, Blankenbeker 1 2 0-0 8, Von Behren 0 0 0-0 0.
2FG-17, 3FG-8, FT-0-2, PF-15.

BROOKLYN LOVEJOY 62, CISNE 53
The Wildcats outscored Cisne 26-12 in the final seven minutes of play to win the second game of the SuperFan Shootout.

DeAntri Wiley topped all scorers with 26-points and was named the games MVP.

Cisne (9-15) got 21-points from Ben Farleigh in the loss.

	1	2	3	4		Total
Lovejoy	18	13	9	28	-	62
Cisne	8	13	17	15	-	53

Lovejoy (62) - Wiley 3 3 11-13 26, Thomas 4 2 4-5 18, O'Bannon 5 0 0-2 10, Emerson 0 0 1-2 1, Agnew 3 0 1-2 7, Bernard 0 0 0-0 0.
2FG-15, 3FG-5, FT-17-24, PF-12.
Cisne (53) - Rodgers 0 0 0-2 0, Farleigh 2 4 5-5 21, Rutger 0 0 3-4 3, Lowery 6 0 0-0 12, Vaught 2 0 0-0 4, Kincart 2 0 0-0 4, Lowe 2 1 0-0 7, Obrecht 1 0 0-0 2.
2FG-15, 3FG-4, FT-8-11, PF-17.