Redskins outlast Cavs

COLDWATER - St. Henry coach Eric Rosenbeck rephrased the "If you live by the 3, you die by the 3" mantra after Friday's game with Coldwater.

"You live by it, you die by it if you take stupid ones," Rosenbeck said. "When you're open like Seth Heitkamp is when he gets going, or Ben Evers, I'll take that shot all day.

"The teams that usually die are the ones who are taking challenged 3s," he added. "If we take open ones, we can shoot 60 and I'd be fine with that."

St. Henry shot 24 3-pointers and made eight - including seven in the first half that gave it a double-digit lead. The Redskins went on to extend their winning streak in the Backyard Basketball Battle to 16 with a 60-49 victory at the Palace.

"With the number of kids they have capable of shooting the ball, they're a tough matchup," Coldwater coach Nick Fisher said.

Coldwater had an 8-2 lead by the 5:47 mark of the first quarter on the back of six straight points by Ethan Post and a layup in transition by Noah Miller. Matt Bertke answered with back-to-back 3-pointers to level the score. Post and Bertke each scored 10 in the frame for their teams. The score was deadlocked at 8, 10, 15 and 17.

The Cavaliers took their first lead of the second quarter on a 3-pointer by Carson Muhlenkamp, which made the score 24-22. Then the Redskins went bonkers from deep.

Riley Link - who scored 10 points and dished out four assists in the first half - began a 16-4 Redskins run with a trey. Ben Evers followed with another 3, Link had a no-look pass to a teammate for a bucket and then delivered a deep dish down the floor to an open Seth Heitkamp in the corner for St. Henry's sixth triple. Heitkamp later capped the run with another shot from deep. The Redskins hit 14-of-28 shots, including 7-of-15 3s for a 38-28 lead at halftime.

"The first half was really, really disappointing for about 12 minutes because we didn't do anything we talked about defensively," Rosenbeck said. "We were letting Post go wherever he wanted to go. We were letting them run free, and they've got some athletes and they've got some guys who can fill it up, so you really have to get into them. Jackson Center set a great blueprint. Obviously, coach (Scott) Elchert knows what he's doing on the defensive side. We wanted to emulate that. We finally started getting into some guys. Bennett Gels made some good defensive plays. Jackson Heath gave us a spark on defense. When we get stops, we can run out and fill it up ourselves."

As good as that was, St. Henry was held to just two points in the first 6 minutes of the third quarter. Coldwater quickly chopped its deficit to three points thanks to a couple of buckets by Zack McKibben and some inside work by Noah Miller.

Leading by three with under 2 minutes to play, Evers got his second 3-pointer to fall and ignited a 7-2 end-of-quarter run.

A Jake Hemmelgarn triple cut Coldwater's margin to four points early in the fourth, but it didn't get any closer. Bennett Gels followed a step-back jumper and Jackson Heath later drove the baseline for a basket. Lange drove in for a layup and Bertke converted two free throws to stretch the lead back to 10 with 2:50 remaining.

"I think we went away from the great start with some of the shots we took," Fisher said. "We weren't taking bad shots, but they weren't the great shots we were getting early in the game. I thought we settled at times for 3s late in the first and into the second. Again, they weren't bad shots, but I don't think they were shots we were getting early in the game.

"I thought we had a decent game plan going in, but we kind of scratched some of that at halftime," Fisher said. "We came out and threw some of our zone at them. We had some success with it, but I think they just have kids who are resilient shooting the ball. It's like they have ice water in their veins."

St. Henry finished 23-of-49 shooting. Coldwater was 20-of-44.

The Redskins had a trio of players reach double figures in Evers (13 points), Bertke (12) and Link (12).

Post led the Cavs with 12 points.