Second half paces Cardinals past Panthers

NEW BREMEN - Friday night was dubbed "Silent Night" at Cardinal Gymnasium. The fans weren't supposed to get loud until New Bremen reached the six-point mark during its game against the Parkway Panthers.

With the exception of Carson Manger's two-handed throw down to end the first quarter, a dunk that gave the Cardinals a 7-5 lead, the gym was silent for much of the opening half.

The Cards gave their fans more to cheer about in the final 24 minutes.

After a close and somewhat sloppy first half, New Bremen (3-2, 1-1 MAC) pulled away from the Panthers (2-2, 0-1) with a 32-16 run in the second half and rolled to a 48-31 victory.

"We punched the gaps (in the second half)," said New Bremen coach Adam Dougherty, after his team overcame 20 turnovers to get the win. "We tried to get inside the zone instead of just passing to get it around the perimeter. In the first half, our two guards up top just stood and danced with the ball. In the second half, we just looked to be more aggressive and looked to get in the paint a little more."

New Bremen's defense was stingy from start to finish. The Cards led the Panthers 16-15 at break. The two teams combined for 25 first-half turnovers. But Bremen finally gained some breathing room by outscoring Parkway 10-2 in the third quarter. Manger and Kaelen Reed connected on back-to-back jumpers and then Nolan Fox snatched an offensive rebound and scored to finish off the run.

Trey Naylor buried a triple to start the fourth. Manger followed with five points in a row to put his team up 35-19 and the Cards never looked back.

"They've got some good players. They're tough," Parkway coach Rick Hickman said. "The thing we're going to take away from this is for 2 1/2 quarters, we played really good defense. We held them to 16 points at half, and that may not happen to them the rest of this year. We've got to take that away from this. We've got to focus on the positive."

The Panthers nearly doubled their offensive output from the first 24 minutes in the fourth quarter with 14 points. Parkway was limited to 12-of-37 shooting (.324 percent) and turned the ball over 22 times.

"There were some individual battles we didn't win," Hickman said. "They came out and pressured us extremely well on the wings and every place on the floor. We're a young team. We're not quite ready for that pressure across the board. That's a battle we've got to win. We've got to win the battles of getting to the ball, keeping our balance and fighting for the pressure."  

"We defended really well," Dougherty said. "A year ago, if we play that poorly offensively, we don't defend like that. It's a little bit of maturity. It didn't matter what happened on the other end, we kept defending."

Brody Adams led the Parkway offense with eight points. Tanner Bates and Connor Morton each scored seven.

Manger had a game-high 15 points and added eight rebounds. Trey Naylor and Fox each scored nine. The Cardinals shot 41 percent from the field, 50 percent from the three-point line and 80 percent from the charity stripe. Those numbers aren't bad, but Dougherty said the key going forward will be limiting turnovers and having focus on a nightly basis.

"We didn't have a good week of practice and it carries over, Dougherty said. "The mistakes we made all week in practice, we made tonight.

"Maybe it's a little wake up call for them. You can't just show up against anybody and think the ball is just magically going to go in the hoop. Give them a lot of credit. They're big. They're physical. They play really hard and they play the zone really well. We didn't execute the way we needed to."

Both teams are back in action tonight. New Bremen is at Anna and Parkway is home for South Adams.