Minster sneaks by St. Henry

ST. HENRY - After a so-so first half, Minster boys basketball coach Michael McClurg knew his team had to kick it up a notch in the second half against St. Henry.

The Wildcats got timely shooting and played solid defense to take the lead and held on for the 55-49 win over the Redskins at St. Henry Middle School Gymnasium.

St. Henry took a 28-25 lead at the half on a Ben Evers' 3-pointer. Minster committed 11 turnover in the first half but was close to 50% shooting from the floor (8-of-19).

The tide started to turn in the second half.

Jacob Salazar, the area's most prolific 3-point shooter with 46 treys coming into the game, was held scoreless in the first half before coming alive after halftime. Salazar hit the first of three treys in a span of three minutes to trim the margin to two. Justin Nixon followed with a bucket with 6:39 remaining in the half to tie the game with Salazar knocking down his second trey to give the Wildcats their first lead since the second quarter. Bennett Gels scored to get St. Henry to within a point, but Trent Roetgerman countered with a bucket of his own to put the Wildcats back up by three. Salazar hit his final trey of the run to make it a six-point game.

"I thought we had a pretty good game plan coming out of halftime," said McClurg. "(St. Henry was) running and jumping and trapping in the front court and full-court. We weren't ready for that. That was a lot of our struggles. We knew for us to win, we'd have to go into attack mode. We got Salazar going. Everybody attacked the rim."

St. Henry tried to close the gap, getting to within three at 39-36, but Bryan Falk beat the buzzer with a basket to give the Wildcats a 41-36 lead after three quarters.

"We had some opportunities on the offensive end that just would not go," said St. Henry coach Eric Rosenbeck. "That led to (Minster) getting some open shots when we had breakdowns. They made us pay."

St. Henry, which had success earlier in the game with driving to the hoop, tried to hit some 3s to get back in front in the fourth quarter, but the Redskins were just 1-of-9 from beyond the arc in that stretch and never got any closer than four points.

Minster, which had struggled at the foul line this season (57.7% coming into the game), hit 8-of-12 from the stripe in the fourth quarter to keep a two-possession lead for the rest of the game.

"I was more proud of our fourth quarter in holding on to the lead with all that pressure and running around (St. Henry) was doing," said McClurg. "We hit some free throws, which we had been struggling to do."

"We didn't get to the (foul) line nearly enough," said Rosenbeck, whose squad took just four free throws in the game and made two. "We have to be more physical on our drives."

Nixon finished with 15 points and nine rebounds to lead the Wildcats (13-7, 5-3 MAC). Salazar finished with 13 with Roetgerman scoring 10.

Gels led St. Henry (10-11, 3-5 MAC) with 10 points.

Minster travels to Anna tonight before wrapping up the regular season next Friday at Parkway. St. Henry will look finish the regular season at .500 next Friday in Delphos against St. John's.