Delaware’s long range accuracy downs BW boys, 50-39

By GARY HENERY

News Man­ag­ing Editor

DELAWARE — The Pac­ers played long ball …

Delaware Hayes, con­nect­ing on six of nine 3-point attempts in the sec­ond half, pulled away from a 21–18 half­time lead to hand Big Wal­nut a 50–39 Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion set­back last Fri­day night on the Pac­ers’ home hardwood.

Cling­ing to a 21–20 lead early in the third quar­ter, Jor­dan Blackburn’s Pac­ers went on a 14–3 run, a run high­lighted by a pair of treys from 5-foot-8 senior guard Mike Wells and 6–2 sopho­more guard Noble Moore to open up a 12-point, 35–23 lead on Wells’ three with 2:09 left in the period.

Wells, who led all scor­ers with 25 points, drilled one of his six treys with 31 sec­onds left in the third quar­ter to send Delaware Hayes (4–1, 2–1 OCC) into the final period with a 13-point, 38–25 lead.

“We did a bet­ter job of find­ing the open man and get­ting good shots in the sec­ond half,” Black­burn said. “We were try­ing to force the ball In the sec­ond quar­ter and, as a result, we turned the ball over and Big Wal­nut took full advan­tage to get back in the game.”

Big Wal­nut (2–3, 0–2 OCC) bat­tled back to open the final period with three treys, two by 6–1 senior Zach Laugh­man and one by 6–6 senior Adam Sha­heen, to close to within seven of the lead at 41–34 on back-to-back treys by Laugh­man with 3:39 to play. But that was as close as it would get for the Golden Eagles as Wells and Moore canned con­sec­u­tive three-pointers to put the game out of reach with a 49–36 advan­tage with 1:17 remaining.

“We bat­tled back after a slow start against a good Delaware team,” Big Wal­nut head coach Eric Myers said after watch­ing his club fall behind 11–0 in the open­ing three min­utes of the game. “We tight­ened up our defense in the sec­ond quar­ter and got back in the game, but we were unable to close it out.”

The Golden Eagles, who trailed 19–11 after the first period, held the Pac­ers to just a Gaige Linville field goal in the sec­ond quar­ter while scor­ing all 7 of their points on six Hayes turnovers to go into the inter­mis­sion down by only three, 21–18.

Hayes, hit­ting 7 of its first 12 shots, includ­ing 4 of 5 threes, jumped out to the early lead behind the scor­ing of 6–6 junior Alex Stevens and Wells who com­bined to scorer 12 of the Pac­ers’ 19 points.

“We got off to a solid start, but Big Walnut’s zone defenses took us out of our game plan in the sec­ond quar­ter,” Black­burn said. “That’s what we talked about at half­time and we came out an did a bet­ter job mov­ing the ball in the sec­ond half.”

“We are con­tin­u­ing to make progress,” Myers said. “With more min­utes under our belts we are becom­ing more con­sis­tent as a team … it will take time, but we are get­ting there.”

Hayes shot 46.2 per­cent (18-for-39) for the game, includ­ing 10-for-16 (62.5 per­cent) from 3-point range. The Pac­ers con­verted 4 of 7 free throws. Moore backed Wells with 9 points on three treys while Jante Wright and Grif­fin Kin­ney added 5 points apiece.

Sha­heen led Big Wal­nut with 21 points while Laugh­man fol­lowed in dou­ble fig­ures with 12. The Golden Eagles made good on only 12 of 46 field goal tries (26.1 per­cent). They were 5-for-15 (33.3 per­cent) from behind the arc. At the line, the Golden Eagles con­verted 10 of 17 tries.

Hayes, led by Kinney’s 9 boards, claimed a 33–31 advan­tage on the boards, Sha­heen led BW off the glass with 11 boards. The Golden Eagles com­mit­ted only 8 turnovers in their 49 pos­ses­sions, los­ing 10 points, while the Pac­ers turned the ball over 11 times in 48 pos­ses­sions, los­ing 17 points.

BIG WALNUT 67, LICKING VALLEY 54 — The Golden Eagles came out with a chip on their shoulder …

Big Wal­nut (2–2) raced out to a 13–4 first –quar­ter lead before erupt­ing for 23 points in the sec­ond period en route to a 20-point, 36–16 half­time lead in last Tuesday’s (Decem­ber 11) non-conference deci­sion over the vis­it­ing Pan­thers of Lick­ing Valley

“We picked it up a notch as a team and came out ready to play offen­sively … with a chip on our shoul­ders,” Golden Eagle second-year head coach Eric Myers said.

Zach Laugh­man and Adams Sha­heen fueled the Big Wal­nut offense, com­bin­ing for 37 points. The 6-foot-1 Laugh­man led all scor­ers with 19 points while the 6–6 Sha­heen put 18 points on the board. Nick Her­bert and Jeremy Bok chipped in with 8 points apiece.

Win­less Lick­ing Val­ley (0–5), which came back out to dom­i­nate the third quar­ter, outscor­ing the Golden Eagles 18–11 in the period to close within 13 of the lead at 47–34 going into the final quar­ter. Both quin­tets put 20 points in the book over the final eight minutes.

Scott Mor­ris paced the Pan­thers with 18 points. Drew McAr­tor fol­lowed with 8 points.

Posted by Gary Henery on Dec 19 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.