Each Sunday, yours truly will take a look at some of the bigger stories and important notes of the week with a wrap up column.
For the first time this season, that means a Sunday column that focuses on both girls and boys happenings from the week gone by with area boys games opening up on Tuesday. And yes, this was a holiday and football-centric week, but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a lot of good and interesting basketball to talk about.
BOYS SEASON TIPS OFF
While Wednesday is often looked at that day that officially tips off a new season of high school basketball, New Haven and Woodlan opened up with a banger last Tuesday. Tarvar Baskerville scored 22 points as New Haven got the win in the closing seconds with some clutch free throws, 58-54.
Fairfield also won Tuesday with 25 points from Cole Knight to top Wawasee. Lakewood Park got a Tuesday win over Southern Wells, led by 25 points from Davi Freitas.
Wednesday night didn’t disappoint though as one of Bounce’s favorite nights of the year with Carroll, Columbia City, Canterbury, Garrett, DeKalb, Homestead, Westview and Leo all opening their campaigns with wins. Tuesday is all fine and good, but something about the night before Thanksgiving always hits different.
Canterbury‘s may have stood out the most. The defending Class 1A state champions graduated virtually everyone from their title team and certainly were not favored in their opener with Central Noble, a squad that brings back plenty and added more. Yet, the Cavaliers were the sharper team down the stretch and into overtime with Aran Padmalingam leading with 16 points and Alden Greider putting in 14 for the 51-48 win. Its a big statement win for the Cavaliers as they try to prove they weren’t just a one hit wonder. Kudos though to Carmine Shoda from Central Noble, who led the way with 20 points and introduced his name to the area. The Cougars also got a great effort out of homeschool transfer Colt Kirkpatrick who took – ready for this – five charges in the loss. The effort of Kirkpatrick shouldn’t be ignored in the season opener.
Speaking of charges helping momentum in games, Garrett senior Royce Fuentes took two of his own Wednesday as the Railroaders opened the coach Logan Traylor era with a 51-45 win at Heritage in a back and fourth contest. Isaiah King led Garrett with 16 points while Parker Reed added 15. On Saturday, King scored 22 with 10 rebounds for the Railroaders against Prairie Heights as they improved to 2-0 with both wins coming on the road; Garrett won just one road game last season.
Leo got 18 points and eight rebounds from Solomon Richard and 17 points from Nolan Hiteshew in their Wednesday win over Concordia. Hiteshew added three steals as the Lions too opened with a win for a new coach; Derek Hinen gets his first win in purple, 57-42 after jumping out to a 24-9 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Columbia City was led by steady and balanced shooting in their 63-29 Wednesday win against county rival Whitko. Caidyn Berna scored a co-team high 12 points while missing a single shot; Stratton Fuller had the other 12 point game, going 6-of-9 from the field. Landon Richmond, also hit at a 83 percent success rate with 10 points and Owen Marshall made a fourth Eagle in double figures scoring with 11 points.
Carroll went inside and they found success early and often from Paxton Crane in a 58-30 win over Norwell. The Knights aren’t super big and where they are, they are not super experienced. That meant that Carroll was going to be able to ride the wave on their top returner with Crane scoring 20 and adding 16 rebounds in the win. Keeping it inside, Brody Fisher added 11 points and six rebounds for Carroll.
Westview got the win on the strength of Daniel Yoder‘s 21 points to beat Bethany Christian. Yoder’s quick emergence helps the scoring depth of the Warriors, something we saw on Saturday despite a loss to Northridge. In Saturday’s loss, Yoder had 14 more to join with a big scoring collective of 25 from Kaden Grau, 19 from Austin Schlabach and 10 points out of Owen Brill.
Homestead held Tippecanoe Valley to just 31 points in their Thanksgiving Eve game. Mack Welker led Homestead with 16 points.
NORWELL GIRLS REMAIN MUST WATCH
Last Tuesday night was one for the record books at Norwell, which is becoming a common thing for the Knights. For the third time in less than two full seasons, the single game scoring record for the program was broken as the Knights put up 80 as a team on Concordia.
Vanessa Rosswurm has taken over the top spot, which should get showered with credit considering how many great players have gone through the program. Yet, Rosswurm’s 43 points in the 80-48 win was impressive as any scoring output recently in Northeast Indiana. It only took her 28 shots to get to the mark, hitting 15 of them for a shooting percentage on the night of 57.1 while also shooting 44 percent from three and a perfect 7-of-7 outing at the free throw line.
She also just added 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 5 steals in the game for good measure.
The Knights had to really push to beat a hungry Angola team on Friday and the Hornets should get their flowers for that one. Bailey Holman scored 16 and Lexi Stillman added 14 points as Angola fell 64-56. Angola went into the half trailing by seven, but evened things up at 47 points after three quarters. However in the fourth, Norwell hit three triples and Rosswurm added four to her game high 22 points for Norwell to pick up another W.
While Angola gets some kudos for the close game, Rosswurm again was sensational, falling one assist shy of the rare triple double with 10 rebounds and nine assists.
SNIDER DOUBLES UP
Merrillville is probably all done with Snider for the time being.
Part of a small slate of games on Friday, the Panthers hosted the Pirates for a girl-boy double header and boy did Snider every flourish.
Panther freshman Janaya Cooper exploded for a new (still way early) career best of 32 points in a game where the Pirates only scored 42 themselves. Keep in mind, in that big win, that Cooper scored 30 of those points in the first three quarters. Excitement continues to mount for what Cooper could do over these next four seasons and while this isn’t her first big scoring game, it is certainly the most eye catching as she also added 13 rebounds.
In the second game, the boys of Snider also topped the Pirates, this time 72-47. And again, it was the youth that got things going. Trell Hogue scored a team high 17 points in the win, but it was a balanced effort for Snider. Xavier Wilson had a 14 point, 10 rebound double double, while Braylin Fertil added nine points and Ketron Paschall had eight.
Snider is going to be a great place to watch basketball games for the foreseeable future.
ZAHN’S SELFLESS 39
Saturday was a big game and selfless one from Huntington North senior Ethan Zahn.
He scored 39 points in an overtime loss to Mississinewa, falling one point shy of tying Adam Thompson‘s program single game scoring record, set in 2002. Thompson scored his 40 on January 26 of that year against Broad Ripple
Down four, Zahn was fouled with just around five seconds left to go on a three point attempt. He hit two free throws and purposely missed the third, giving the Vikings hopes for an offensive rebound and to tie the game. Off the miss, Dalton Husband did secure the board and got fouled, but was only able to hit one free throw and Mississinewa snuck out on top.
Either way, kudos to Zahn for playing for the team. Whether he was aware of the record or not, he certainly knew he was right near that rare 40 point mark, but Zahn was there to win the game, not the record book.
Zahn scored his 39 points on 14 of 28 shooting, including 5-of-11 from three point range.
OTHER GIRLS NOTES
Wabash secured 28 steals on Saturday in their win over Madison-Grant. Brookelynn Buzzard had seven of those to lead the way; Kaitlynn Honeycutt and Anna Daughtry each had six and Bryleigh Boggs had five steals…Addison Baxter had another good defensive week herself with 8 steals in a win over Goshen to start the week, then ended the week with six steals (and 24 points) in a loss to Brownsburg for Columbia City….Speaking of steals, Luca Bontrager had six in Tuesday’s Lakewood Park win over North Side to go with a balanced six points and eight rebounds….Eva Herbert had 10 assists Saturday in Fairfield‘s win over Concord….On Tuesday, Karis Weinberg tied Westview‘s record with 7 made three pointers, matching Grace Hales (2016) and Hope Bortner (2022)….Bellmont girls scored 27 in the second quarter of Tuesday’s win over Adams Central….Woodlan‘s win over Jay County Friday marked the first Patriot regular season ACAC loss since November 29, 2019 – exactly five years to the date, also to Woodlan….Gabby Helsom hit 8 threes on Friday in a 67-32 win over Bellmont for Homestead.
These opinions represent those of Bounce and Outside the Huddle. No opinions expressed on Outside the Huddle represent those of any of our advertisers. Follow Bounce on Twitter at Bounce_OTH
Be the first to comment