By GARY R. RASBERRY
grasberry@dailystandard.com
ST. HENRY — The concerns about a lack of power in
the early part of the season appear to be by the wayside in
St. Henry.
The Redskins put up their second straight game of 80 points
or more in beating Wapakoneta 87-75 at the Middle School Gymnasium
in a battle of Redskins. The win was the third straight for
St. Henry and puts the team over .500 at 3-2. The loss was the
second in a row — and second game in giving up more than
80 points — for Wapak which stands at 1-2 on the year.
From the start the matchup showed shoot-out. Bryan Post took
Wapak by surprise with a pair of three-pointers to help the
Redskins jump out 10-0. Wapak responded with long-range shooting
from Austin McCormick, whose NBA-range treys helped keep it
close for most of the first quarter with St. Henry leading 24-20
at the first break.
“It was a kind of a game of streaks,” said St. Henry
coach Joe Niekamp. “We had the streak early and Wapak
had a couple of streaks, one late in the game. We felt we could’ve
done a better job defending the perimeter but they made a lot
of threes from way out. That’s not easy to defend.”
St. Henry made its big push for the cushion in the start of
the second quarter when Steve Sutter scored the first eight
points for St. Henry on an 8-2 run. St. Henry had the lead up
to 34-24 then kept pushing it up to take a 44-29 lead at the
half.
Wapak, a team with just one player standing 6-3, worked to try
and pack the middle to keep Sutter and Kurt Huelsman from dominating.
That allowed Post, Jared Stammen and Ross Niekamp to shoot from
outside with ease. St. Henry hit 44 percent (4-of-9) from beyond
the arc in the first half and was 6-of-15 in the game.
When the Wapak defense had to go out a bit, that allowed Huelsman
and Sutter to control the inside. The pair were a combined 11-of-18
in the game. Huelsman had 16 points, four of which came on two
crowd-friendly dunks. Sutter finished with 13.
St. Henry did commit 21 turnovers on the evening, thanks to
the pressure defense Wapak put on to try and get back in the
game.
“They came after us with a little more pressure and were
a little more aggressive on the ball,” said coach Niekamp.
“That’s something we’re continuing to develop
— being tougher with the ball and good decision-making.
From that standpoint, it was a good learning experience for
us. We were able to do enough to hold them off.”
Wapak coach Brian Vorst summed his thoughts in a short speech.
“St. Henry is a good team. We need to learn how to defend,”
said Vorst, who chose not to comment further.
Nate Stahl led the Redskins with 20, Post added 13 with the
younger Niekamp coming off the bench for 12.
McCormick led all scorers with 22 while Brent Schroeder added
20.
St. Henry is off until Saturday when the team makes the trip
to Greenville.
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