12-18-07
BY JACK BULLOCK
TEUTOPOLIS - It wasn’t a perfect game but it was close.

The Teutopolis Wooden Shoes – coming off of a “poor” showing on Friday night according to head coach Andy Fehrenbacher – took no prisoners Tuesday night in a non-conference contest with Casey-Westfield.

T-Town ripped open the game with big runs in the second and third quarters to crush the Warriors, 85-43 Tuesday night.

The T-Town tradition has been built on defense and rebounding.

This game was a prime example of how dominating the 'Shoes can be when they rebound and defend well.

Yielding just two first half offensive rebounds to C-W and playing strong defense – Teutopolis turned a 15-9 first quarter advantage into a 40-19 half-time lead.

Coach Fehrenbacher’s club out-manned Casey-Westfield 42-22 on the boards and connected on 53 percent of their shots from the field that included a 9-for-12 effort from behind the 3-point arc.

“Defense and rebounding have been the cornerstone of Teutopolis basketball since – forever,” said Coach Fehrenbacher – whose team improved to 6-3 on the season with the win. “Why change something that has worked so well? We stress rebounding and we run those drills in practice and what we talked about tonight is that Casey shoots a lot of three’s and that we needed to hold our block-outs and we did that tonight.”

Scoring the second half’s first six points – Teutopolis left no doubt as to whom the victor was going to be.

“I thought that we wore them (C-W) down in the third quarter,” added Coach Fehrenbacher. “We didn’t play very well Friday night at Neoga and I was concerned coming into tonight’s game. With a young team you have inconsistency but we did a lot of fundamental things right tonight.”

Four Teutopolis players hit for double-figures and ten players scored in the rout.

Brian Haskenherm led the way with 22 points – including four 3-pointers – while Tony Zerrusen added 16.

Chris Gillespie chipped in 12 and John Runde 10 in a game that was over just a few minutes into the second half.

“Brian Haskenherm really stepped up for us and he really started looking for his shot,” Fehrenbacher explained. “This kid lives right behind me and in the summer I saw him out there shooting all the time in the driveway – working on his game. He just has to have the confidence in his shot. We as a coaching staff have confidence in him.”

Even with six first quarter turnovers and just a 14-of-24 showing from the foul line overall – T-Town never let up on Casey-Westfield to win this matchup.

Mitch Snyder was the only player who hit for double-figures for the Warriors and his five first quarter points kept the game close for a while.

His first of two 3-pointers on the evening closed the Warriors deficit to 12-9 with :47.

T-Town turned around and finished the opening stanza with a free throw by Brock Sandschafer and a fast break score by Josh Pals on a pass from Gillespie to expand the lead to 15-9.

The Shoes opened the second quarter with an 8-2 scoring spurt with a 3-pointer from Zerrusen and a conventional three-point play by Gillespie that made it 23-11 Teutopolis.

Snyder – who was one of the few bright spots on the night for Casey-Westfield – drilled home his second trifecta with 6:40 remaining before the half.

T-Town then made another run with nine consecutive points.

John Runde got into the scoring fun with four points and Haskenherm hit his second shot of the game – from the right elbow 15-feet from the basket – to make it 32-14 Shoes.

A 3-pointer from Zerrusen and a backdoor lay in by Sandschafer increased the lead to 37-16.

Casey-Westfield committed 12 first half turnovers and the final one of that dozen came from a steal by Zerrusen and fast break lay in by Haskenherm as T-Town headed to the lockerroom in command.

The first 3:34 of the second half ended the any doubt of the outcome.

Haskenherm hit three 3-pointers in the stretch and Gillespie added another long-range bomb.

When the Gillespie shot found the bottom of the net – the Shoes were dancing at 54-25.

If that run wasn’t enough to satisfy the hunger – T-Town put together an 8-0 run at the end of the quarter with two more 3-pointers (Haskenherm and Zerrusen) and a fast break lay in by Zerrusen on a pass from Josh Pals.

A simple inbounds play and assist from Haskenherm to Runde to set up a shot under the basket beat the buzzer to close the quarter at 67-31.

“We didn’t do a very good job defensively tonight and in the second half we got caught not rotating and left them with some wide-open shots,” said Casey-Westfield head coach Chris Seaton. “And they (T-Town) were really shooting the lights out. We just can’t let people have uncontested shots.”

More Wooden Shoes got in the scoring act in the final quarter as even the reserves poured in on.

Jake Deters hit a pair of shots and Jeremy Schumacher and Jeremy Niebrugge scored a basket apiece in a quick run.

Deters took a pass from Gillespie and scored in transition to make the spread 76-37.

Teutopolis scored the games final eight points to close out the victory.

“We did a good job of pounding the offensive glass against their zone defense tonight,” added Coach Fehrenbacher. “We worked our offense tonight and we made the extra passes tonight to find the open man.”

Snyder’s 12 points topped all Warrior scorers while teammates Logan Boyd, Taylor Biggs and Kruz Kusterman added six points each.

The Teutopolis defense forced 21 turnovers and a 17-of-57 (30 percent) performance by the Warriors from the field that included just 2-of-13 from behind the arc.

The Shoes hit 31-of-58 shots overall in the crushing of the Warriors.

Casey-Westfield saw their record slip to 4-3 overall with losses to T-Town, Neoga and Chrisman.

“We knew coming over here that it doesn’t matter where you play T-Town that they are going to be a team that will rebound, they will crash the boards,” added Seaton. “We have worked on our rebounding quite a bit but we have to continue to get better. Our kids are going to have to get better going for the ball. We have to make that decision that the next rebound is going to be ours. Offensively we are going to have to get more than one shot a trip. We are going to have to rebound better than this.”

Casey-Westfield (43) - L. Boyd 3 0 0-0 6, Yates 2 0 0-0 4, Anzicker 0 0 0-0 0, Shawver 0 0 1-2 1, Biggs 2 0 2-2 6, Rhoads 2 0 0-0 4, Barnhart 1 0 0-0 2, Snyder 3 2 0-0 12, Kusterman 1 0 4-4 6, Cramer 1 0 0-2 2, Scott 0 0 0-0 0, Wagner 0 0 0-0 0, T. Boyd 0 0 0-0 0, Scales 0 0 0-0 0.
2FG-15, 3FG-2, FT-7-10, PF-21.
Teutopolis (85) - Deters 3 0 2-4 8, Gillespie 3 1 3-4 12, Zerrusen 1 4 2-4 16, Haskenherm 5 4 0-0 22, Runde 4 0 2-2 10, Schumachere 1 0 0-0 2, Bothwell 0 0 0-0 0, Giles 0 0 0-0 0, Pals 3 0 0-0 6, Sandschafer 1 0 2-3 4, Niebrugge 1 0 1-5 3, Brummer 0 0 0-0 0.
2FG-22, 3FG-9, FT-14-24, PF-11.
Fouled Out - None.
Technical Fouls - None.