Defense delivers

ST. HENRY - Coldwater coach Nick Fisher knew that Friday night's game would come down to defense, and it did.

Coldwater and St. Henry combined to score 10 points in the fourth quarter, but the Cavaliers kept the Redskins from finishing the comeback and came away with a 41-40 victory in a Midwest Athletic Conference boys basketball game at Redskin Gymnasium on Friday night.

"We kept talking to them about defense, how defense is going to win this game," Fisher said. "We're still a little rusty on offense, with some turnovers that we obviously have to clean up, but I thought our defense would hold us in there, give us an opportunity to win, and it did."

St. Henry (2-3, 1-1 MAC) trailed by seven late in the third before Luke Beyke hit a pull-up jumper just before the buzzer to cut the lead to 38-33. After Blade Buschur missed a pair of free throws early in the fourth, Caden Bergman stole the ball, then drove the baseline and hit a layup to cut the lead to three.

Coldwater (1-3, 1-0 MAC) threw up a wall for nearly four minutes, but the Redskins ramped up the pressure and kept the Cavaliers from extending the lead. With 2:54 remaining, Beyke brought the ball down the baseline and sank a short jumper through contact, then hit the and-one to tie the game at 38.

But then Beyke made a critical mistake, getting called for a foul on Mason Welsch on the other end and whistled for a technical foul immediately after.

"What happened there was, St. Henry was a very undisciplined, unorganized, not very well-coached team," St. Henry coach Eric Rosenbeck said. "St. Henry was in-game fighting and pointing fingers and blaming each other for every wrong that happened. That's a direct reflection of the coach. On that technical, the coach needs to look in the mirror and get some discipline with his kids."

Beyke went to the bench, and after Welsch missed both of his free throws to keep the game tied, Fisher sent Evan Harlamert to the line for the two technical foul shots. Harlamert calmly sank one, then the other, to put the Cavaliers ahead for good.

"He's a senior, played as a junior, just kind of a heady player," Fisher said. "He's that kind of kid. If Mason would've hit his free throws, I might've kept him at the line, but I thought in that situation, after missing his free throws, that Evan was the guy."

St. Henry forced back-to-back turnovers and nearly tied the game when John Hartings got the ball in transition, but Hartings was called for a charge to hand the ball back to the Cavaliers. Another foul sent Harlamert back to the line, where he made the first free throw to extend the lead to three.

With time ticking down, Logan Link hit a floater in the lane, then snatched up a deflection by Hartings to get the ball back with 18.3 seconds left. Evan Bowers got the inbounds pass and dribbled along the arc, but with seven seconds left and no good options, he was forced to settle for a fadeaway three that fell short, and Harlamert grabbed the rebound.

"We figured they were probably going to go to Bowers," Fisher said. "We wanted to see how they would line up, just to give our guys an idea where we wanted to position them, and we just doubled him. Put a guy in front of him, put a guy in back of him, and kind of hopefully took him out of the picture so somebody else would have to hit it."

"We drew one up, and with their pressure, they bumped us out of it," Rosenbeck said. "Then it was a decision of whether to draw up a sideline out of bounds play or to let it ride out. With Evan having the ball in his hands, he's had a great start to the season, I wanted to see if he could make a play. He left it about three inches short from hitting the top of the front rim and the backboard and rolling in."

Harlamert was fouled with two seconds left and missed the front half of the one-and-one. Rosenbeck called timeout to try to get off one final shot. The inbounds pass went off-course and into the hands of Brady Lefeld, and the buzzer sounded a second later.

St. Henry held the Cavaliers without a basket in the fourth quarter, with Harlamert's three free throws making up all their scoring, but it wasn't enough.

"MAC basketball, MAC anything, if you have a team that's more positive, wants it more, hungrier, works together, picks each other up more, that's usually the team that's going to end up winning," Rosenbeck said. "That was not St. Henry tonight."

Harlamert led Coldwater with 12 points. Beyke scored 17 for St. Henry, while Bowers added seven and pulled down 11 rebounds.

The Cavaliers made up for 18 turnovers and 12 fewer shots with a 5-of-13 showing from three. Coldwater shot 45% from the field and out rebounded St. Henry 31-25.

"Early this week in practice, I don't think we were playing very well, and we kind of challenged them," Fisher said. "Then I thought Wednesday and Thursday were two of the better practices that we've had this season, maybe two of the better practices I've seen any team have. So I was kind of excited to come out and play tonight, to see if that would translate over, and I thought it did."

Coldwater travels to Elida tonight, while St. Henry heads up to the Fieldhouse looking to bounce back against Celina.