01-27-06
BY JACK BULLOCK
WOODLAWN - On Friday night at the Woodlawn Invitational Tournament, rival and host Woodlawn never let the undefeated and state-ranked Waltonville Spartans into their usual 'comfort zone.'

The Cardinals 'pestered' coach Mike Denault's team for all 32-minutes of the contest and it took a strong defensive stand and just enough free throws made at the end to keep Waltonville's perfect season intact.

The Spartans hit 9-of-16 charities in the final eight minutes and forced six fourth quarter turnovers to outlast the Cards, 52-48, in front of a tremendous crowd Friday night at Sides Gym.

With the win, Waltonville stays unbeaten at 22-0 while Woodlawn saw its record dip back to the .500 mark at 9-9.

Each night throughout the season, the Spartans have had a different hero step up to keep the winning streak alive.

On Friday night it was Jon Kash, Waltonville's 6-foot-5 senior forward, that took care of business late in the game.

He scored seven of his team-best 16-points, including 3-of-6 free throws, in the final stanza.

But his biggest impact was his two field goals that came on the heels of a Woodlawn run that cut the Spartans lead to a precarious 43-41 with 3:51 remaining.

Taking advantage of three consecutive Redbird turnovers Kash scored a pair of baskets in the lane; one on a spin move and another on an offensive rebound of his own miss that made it 47-41.

Woodlawn got an impressive game from Mike Tiemann.

This senior leader topped the charts with 17-points on the night, nine in the fourth quarter.

He scored a pair of buckets to cut the lead back down to 49-45 with just under a minute to play.

However Waltonville made just enough free throws in the final seconds.

A Tiemann 3-pointer just before the final horn was 'window dressing' in nature, ending the scoring in the hard fought battle between longtime Jefferson County adversaries.

"I know it is a cliché but you can really throw the records out when we play them (Woodlawn) especially here at their place," said Denault, whose team is getting the A-Game of all its opponents and he expects that the remainder of the season. "To be honest with you, I was a little bit worried about this one. Shane (Coach Witzel) does a great job over here and his kids have a lot of pride so I knew that they were going to come out tonight and compete with us and they did that. You have to give them (Woodlawn) a lot of credit."

Waltonville started off hot in the early going, looking to put the game away in the opening quarter like they have done so many times this season.

An 8-2 run sparked by a pair of steals and fast break scores by Josh Ralls and Derek Tepovich gave the Spartans to an early advantage.

But the Woodlawn game plan was to limit the Spartans' 'cheap scores' and for the most part the plan worked.

Getting back on defense for most of the contest Woodlawn forced Waltonville into a half-court game, a style that the Spartans weren't too comfortable with.

"We stressed before the game that we didn't want to give them any run-outs," said Witzel. "Most of the turnovers we had in the first two games against them (both Woodlawn losses) were steals and lay-ups going the other way and we really didn't want them to get baskets in transition off of fast break opportunities."

Woodlawn got a basket by Jody Kabat on a mid-range shot and a 3-pointer from Tiemann that 'revved up' the crowd at 13-12 Waltonville with :39 left in the opening quarter.

Anthony Lowery scored on a drive to the basket for the Spartans to end the quarter at 15-12. Lowery, a defensive catalyst, had three steals in the game to go along with his seven points.

Woodlawn scored the first two times it had the ball in the second quarter to take the lead with another 3-pointer from Tiemann and a back door lay in by Scott McNeil on a pass from Tiemann to make it 17-15 Cardinals.

Waltonville had chances to pull away but a miserable 14-of-29 free throw shooting mark for the entire game helped allow Woodlawn to remain within striking range.

Two more scores by the Cardinals while taking advantage of Waltonville's aggressive defense closed the half at 24-23 Waltonville.

Justin Bonifacius scored his only basket of the game on a pass from Kabat with just :07 left as the two teams went to the break.

Bonifacius helped out his team on the other end of the court, leading Woodlawn with 11 total rebounds, 10 on the defensive end.

The Cardinals scratched their way to one final lead on another in close basket by McNeil and a pair of free throws by John Kindle to make it 30-29 with 4:16 to go in the third quarter.

Kindle, a top defender for Coach Witzel, was in foul trouble and spent a lot of time on the bench in the first half.

But he came back in and scored six points in the frame to keep Woodlawn close.

Lowery, as he did in the first quarter, scored his teams' final points in the third on a drive down the middle of the lane making it 37-34 heading home.

"Not having John (Kindle) out there hurt us on the defensive end," added Witzel. "He does a nice job out there and without him we had to switch some people around."
It wasn't pretty in the fourth quarter, but Waltonville did enough to get the victory.
"They (Woodlawn) had a good game plan and they stuck to it," Denault explained. "They challenged us on the glass tonight and they kept us from getting some of those long rebounds that we usually get."

Speaking of the glass, the rebounding advantage by the much taller Spartans was small at 24-20.

Woodlawn had few offensive rebounds, mainly because they missed so few shots.

The Cards were 17-of-31 overall (55 percent) and 3-of-6 from behind the 3-point line.

Waltonville was 18-of-44 from the field (41 percent) and 2-of-5 from long distance.

However the telling stat was 13 turnovers from Woodlawn, including those six in the final quarter mentioned earlier.

Waltonville had six players score. Following Kash's 16, Tepovich tossed in 13 points while Ralls added 10.

Behind Tiemann's 17, McNeil finished with 12 and Kindle 11.

"We felt like our defensive effort tonight was good, we battled tonight and the loss wasn't from a lack of effort," finalized Witzel, whose team is back in action Saturday night against Sandoval in the final session of the tournament.

"We got into some foul problems tonight but that is part of the game that you have to deal with. We wanted to play them in the half-court and see if we could get a few stops. At times we made some good plays offensively tonight, too."

Waltonville will look to go 4-0 and win the Woodlawn Invitational Tournament title with a victory over Christopher Saturday night.

	1	2	3	4		Final
Waltonville	15	9	13	15	-	52
Woodlawn	12	11	11	14	-	48

Waltonville (52) - Owens 0 1 1-2 4, Ralls 3 1 1-4 10, Tepovich 4 0 5-6 13, Lowery 2 0 3-6 7, J. Kash 6 4-11 16, Kabat 0 0 0-0 0, Spotanski 1 0 0-0 2.
2FG-16, 3FG-2, FT-14-29, PF-14.
Woodlawn (48) - McNeil 5 0 2-4 12, Kindle 3 0 5-6 11, Mike Tiemann 3 3 2-2 17, Bonifacius 1 0 0-0 2, Kabat 2 0 2-2 6, Boldt 0 0 0-0 0, Green 0 0 0-0 0.
2FG-14, 3FG-35, FT-11-14, PF-25.
Fouled Out - Bonifacius, Kabat - Woodlawn.
Technical Fouls - None.

PATOKA 64, SANDOVAL 46
Patoka picked up its first win of the week and just its fourth victory overall in the opening game Friday night.

Hitting for nine 3-pointers in the matchup with Sandoval, the Warriors led for most of the way to improve to 4-16 on the season.

Rio Hames topped Patoka with 16-points while teammate Jordan Potter tossed home 14 including four 3-pointers.

Two other players hit for double-figures with Derek Back and Matt Thompson added 13 and 11 respectively.

Sandoval saw its record drop to 10-11 with the loss and remained winless on for the week at 0-3.

Nathan Koch led the Blackhawks with 17 while Kyle Gambill helped out with 10.

	1	2	3	4		Final
Sandoval	10	16	06	14	-	46
Patoka	22	12	10	20	-	64

Sandoval (46) - Koch 4 2 3-5 17, Irvin 0 0 0-0 0, Dahl 3 0 0-0 6, Gambill 4 0 2-4 10, 4 0 0-2 8, Guern 0 0 1-2 1, Bootright 0 0 0-0 0, Marcketti 1 0 0-0 2, Quick 0 0 0-0 0, Dye 1 0 0-0 2.
2FG-17, 3FG-2, FT-6-13, PF-13.
Patoka (64) - Jenkins 0 0 0-0 0, Murfin 0 0 0-0 0, Thompson 1 2 3-4 11, Cain 1 0 0-0 2, Back 2 3 0-0 13, Potter 1 4 0-0 14, Sullens 0 0 0-0 0, Hames 7 0 2-3 16, Wimberly 0 0 0-0 0, Carroll 4 0 0-2 8.
2FG-16, 3FG-9, FT-5-9, PF-14.
Fouled Out - None.
Technical Fouls - None.