02-09-10
BY JACK BULLOCK
WAYNE CITY - On Tuesday night at Wayne City – the host Indians used the emotions of playing in front of a big crowd in the final home game of the season to stay right with MTC rival Woodlawn for 2 ½ quarters.

The problem for Coach Russ Gerlach’s club?

High school basketball games are played in four quarters.

The visitors took over the contest in the final moments of the third quarter and dominated the fourth period in coming away with a 60-48 win.

Led by a trio of double-digit scorers – Coach Shane Witzel’s team improved to 18-5 on the season with the Midland Trail Conference win that all but clinched the regular season title.

Josh Wiggs – a 6-foot-7 junior center – led the cavalcade of points with 20 while teammates Casey Hammond and Bronson Verhines added 17 and 13 respectively.

With the game still close and the outcome still in doubt – Woodlawn fired up a 19-0 run to finish the third quarter and begin the fourth.

By the time Wayne City knew what hit them – the Indians went from a 39-38 lead to 57-39 shortfall.

Wayne City never recovered in suffering their second league loss in the regular season MTC campaign.

“They were riding a lot of emotion tonight and we talked about that at halftime that it is hard to maintain that for a full 32 minutes. We just wanted to make sure that we didn’t panic,” said Coach Witzel – whose club is now 7-0 in the conference and 18-5 overall. “We made it difficult for them to get easy baskets in the second half. They were a hot team in the first half but we got back to our defensive fundamentals.”

The Indians placed two players in double-figures with Zach Meritt and Trevor Shreve leading the troop with 11 and 10-points.

Back-to-back baskets by Wayne City’s Meritt and Tyler Porter gave the Tribe back the lead by a point with 4:18 left in the third quarter.

At that point Woodlawn exploded for its big sprint to the finish.

Verhines tipped in a Hammond misfire just before the third quarter buzzer.

Wiggs scored nine of the first 13 points in the blast – twice on nice assists from Hammond and Verhines and once on an offensive rebound.

His three-point play while being fouled by Wayne City’s Cody Thomason with 6:05 left in the contest gave Woodlawn its first double-digit advantage at 49-39.

“We were able to get the ball to Josh (Wiggs) early in the game and he got some huge baskets for us,” added Witzel. “Dawson (Verhines) was able to create some shots for himself and others. We felt pretty good about how we played offensively.”

Spreading the floor and forcing the Indians to foul – the Cards cashed in 6-of-10 free throws in the stretch to put the game out of reach.

Wayne City made some shots late in the fourth quarter that made the matchup seem a bit closer than what it was.

“Well we didn’t play well in the third quarter especially and we didn’t score but six points there for the longest time,” said Coach Gerlach – whose team fell to 7-2 in the MTC and 16-7 overall. “They (Woodlawn) are by far the best defensive team that we see all year and when they want to get after it – it will be hard for us or anyone else to score. They stepped it up there in the third quarter and most of the fourth quarter.”

Wayne City hit six of its first ten shots from the floor and trailed just 19-18 at the end of one..

Six-foot-one senior Joseph Evans canned a pair of 3-point shots in the run with his second one giving the Indians an 18-15 spread.

Woodlawn’s Bryan Johnson grabbed his own deflected shot and stuck it back home for his only two points and Kirk Dunbar hit two free throws to close the quarter with Woodlawn leading by a point.

Wiggs grabbed four of his seven rebounds in the first quarter.

“I don’t know how many offensive rebounds they had but it seemed like every missed basket for a while there went back to them,” Gerlach added. “Some of it was that they are just flat-out bigger than us but some of it was us not boxing out. We struggled getting stops at the end.”

The Cards first offensive run was an 8-0 move in the middle of the second quarter – highlighted by a skip pass from John Cavender to Hammond who was wide open in the right corner.

His 3-pointer gave Woodlawn a 29-23 lead and forced Gerlach to spend a timeout with 4:20 to go before intermission.

Wayne City got back into the game and took the lead into the lockerroom at the half.

Cody Thomason made a nice spin move underneath the basket while Meritt notched a 3-pointer from the top of the arc that banked home.

Shreve drove the lane for a basket and Meritt hit 1-of-2 free throws for a 33-31 WC lead at the break.

Woodlawn outgunned the hosts’ 29-15 in the second half to pick up the win.

“We can shoot the three some, but we aren’t going to live by it. We have to get to the basket to be successful and obviously we struggled to sustain that tonight,” explained Gerlach. “The do a good job stopping the drive and do all of the defensive fundamentals well.”

Wayne City shot the ball well enough to beat good teams on this night (18-of-37) overall but the turnovers allowed Woodlawn to take over.

Woodlawn hit 21-of-41 shots from the field and were 2-of-4 from behind the 3-point line.

The Cardinals held a 26-16 rebounding edge and turned the ball over just eight times in the contest but none of the TO’s came in the fourth quarter.

“By that time you want to spread the floor and eat up as much clock as you can with each possession and force them to guard you,” finalized Witzel. “And the main thing was we didn’t turn it over late.”

Woodlawn closes out the regular season with games with three home games against West Richland at home on Friday night, a make up game with Sandoval next Tuesday and then the regular season finale against Clay City.

Those Indians hit the trail to play at Sandoval this Friday in their last MTC game before tackling Okawville (on Saturday) and then Waltonville the following Friday.

Woodlawn (60) – Verhines 4 0 5-11 13, Hammond 3 2 5-8 17, Wiggs 8 0 4-5 20, Dunbar 1 0 2-4 4, McNeil 1 0 0-0 2, Cavender 1 0 0-0 2, Johnson 1 0 0-0 2.
2FG-19, 3FG-2, FT-16-26, PF-9.
Wayne City (48) – Courtright 1 1 0-0 5, J. Smith 0 0 0-0 0, Shreve 5 0 0-2 10, Porter 2 1 2-2 9, Evans 0 2 1-2 7, Thomason 2 0 2-2 6, Meritt 2 2 1-2 11.
2FG-15, 3FG-2, FT-5-7, PF-14.
Fouled Out – Courtright, Thomason - Wayne City.
Technical Fouls – Hammond - Woodlawn