Junior scores 17 in season
opener
By MARC TOBIAS
mtobias@dailystandard.com
ST. MARYS — Coldwater was able to utilize a three-quarter
court zone press and a solid halfcourt defense to knock off
St. Marys 51-43 Saturday night at McBroom Gymnasium.
The ’Riders wanted to get up and down the floor quickly,
but in the first half they struggled to find a way to get through
the Cavaliers’ zone press.
“It definitely slowed us down some, we weren’t flashing
the right guy in the middle, and then it goes back to finding
the next pass,” said St. Marys coach Josh Leslie. “We
struggled with that in the first half, the second half I don’t
think it was as much of a problem, but we couldn’t finish.
We couldn’t get over the hump, to where we go on a run
and stop them from getting that big shot, they always had an
answer to our run.”
That pressure allowed Coldwater to jump out to a 30-17 halftime
lead.
“We saw them play Sidney Lehman and I joked with coach
Leslie about not being able to see their numbers because they
were so fast up and down the floor, it seemed like a blur, “
said Coldwater coach Don Vogt. “We knew we had to do something
to slow that down, we played a little zone press to keep the
ball in front of us, they started throwing the ball over us
in the second half and we adjusted to more of a man-type defense
where we just hustled back in transition and stayed in front
of them the best we could.”
St. Marys came out inspired in the second half, as a 9-2 run
cut the Cavaliers lead to 32-26.
(Continued from page 1B)
Scott Vossler, who led St. Marys with 17 points, scored seven
of those nine, and Coldwater appeared to be in danger of losing
the lead.
The Roughriders defense had Coldwater reeling, as the Cavs were
forced into 25 turnovers and held to six points in the third
quarter.
When Tom Burke stole a pass and took it in for a layup, the
Riders trailed by just two.
That was as close as St. Marys would get, though, as Coldwater
always seemed to have a big shot that would hold the lead.
When Vossler knocked down a pair of free throws to cut the Riders
deficit to 38-34, it was Craig Wellman hitting one of his four
three-pointers.
Craig Koesters scored two of his nine points on a assist from
Jeff Grieshop, and another Wellman 3-pointer made it 46-34 Cavs
with just over four minutes to play.
Wellman, along with Vossler from St. Marys, were the games top
scorers with 17 points.
“Here’s a kid a couple weeks ago who wasn’t
sure about his shot coming out of football,” Vogt said
of Wellman. “His dad was kidding me one day that he took
him to the gym on Sunday and he was throwing up bricks, he certainly
overcame that tonight and he hit some huge shots for us.”
St. Marys certainly wish they could say the same thing about
their shooting, as they connected on 30 percent (17-of-56) of
their shots.
The Riders shooting woes were most evident from three-point
range, where they connected on just 1-of-21. Coldwater hit 8-of-19
from long range.
“We took bad shots, we didn’t necessarily make the
extra pass as well as we did last night, we were finding the
right guy to take shots at the right time and tonight we didn’t
do that,” Leslie said. “We kind of settled for the
first look, instead of making the next pass for a better look.”
“We cannot live on the three-point line, we tend to do
that too much,” Leslie added. “We had 24 more shots
then they had, if you have 24 more shots you expect to win.
The thing is when they got shots, they made shots. We cut it
to two and they seemed like they always had an answer. Wellman
and Koesters hit big three-pointers. I’m proud of our
kids for fighting back in the second half, but we need to have
that same effort in the first half, and I don’t think
we necessarily got that.”
Coldwater was able to overcome their 25 turnovers by hitting
20-of-39 from the floor (51 percent). Grieshop added 10 points
for the Cavs while Kyle Vossler 10 for the Riders.
St. Marys is back in action Friday when the Roughriders host
St. Henry while Coldwater takes an extended break and will travel
to Minster on Dec. 19.
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