Braxton Linville drains a three in the first half of Friday’s game at Wawasee. (Photos by Nick Goralczyk)
SYRACUSE — The writing was on the wall heading into Friday night’s boys basketball game between NorthWood and Wawasee. The Panthers entered ranked No. 4 in class 3A and the Warriors came in with a varsity roster still trying to find its identity. NorthWood was able to take advantage of several aspects of the game to cruise to a 71-43 victory.
“I was happy with our energy,” began NorthWood head coach Aaron Wolfe. “I thought we were fortunate enough to make some shots early. Wawasee had some opportunities that they didn’t convert on that helped separate the score early and I thought our guys held their intensity throughout the game.”
The Panthers jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the opening minutes of the game and would lead 15-2 before closing the first quarter with an 18-6 lead.
Wawasee had some open looks, the team brought energy for four quarters and some bounces simply did not go the Warriors way, but that was far from the story of the game.
NorthWood’s players earned their keep by absolutely dominating the boards. The Panthers closed the night winning the rebound battle 44-21. Of course when a team is able to get rebounds it is easy to create second chance opportunities. NorthWood scored 19 second chance points, Wawasee had four.
The Warriors did protect the ball, for the most part, winning the turnover battle with 11 to NorthWood’s 15. However the Panthers converted their 11 takeaways into 24 points, Wawasee scored 15 with its 15 takeaways.
The lack of production on offense that Wawasee has struggled with all year continued to be a killer again Friday. NorthWood shot 52-percent from the field while the Warriors shot 33-percent for the game and just 28-percent in the first half.
The visiting team had four players score double digits with Vincent Miranda leading the way with 19 points. Trey Bilinski added 12 while Luke Zurcher and Dakiyron Fox had 10 points each. Chad Sellers came off the bench to hit a trio of threes to finish with nine points.
“I was very impressed with how we shared the basketball tonight,” said Wolfe. NorthWood had 11 assists as a team. “I thought there were times where we did not take the first shot available and that was helpful. Our rebounding was great. Dakiyron Fox had a great first half for us but it was a great group effort and I thought tonight’s game showed some poise and experience for us.”
Fox led all players with eight rebounds.
Wawasee was led offensively by Trevon Coleman, who has been a nice addition since returning last Saturday. Coleman had 16 points and added a pair of rebounds. Chase Rookstool and Dalton Pearish both had nice nights offensively for the Warriors as well as they each finished with eight points.
Despite getting dominated on the boards and not having a size advantage, Wawasee was able to get a lot of good looks inside the paint, but converting many of those chances proved to be the issue.
“We thought if there was a chance or a place that we could score that it would be on the inside,” said Wawasee head coach Steve Wiktorowski. “I thought Chase and Dalton each had a good night inside Trevon was able to make some shots as well. We’ve worked awfully hard on developing our inside game and I thought that showed tonight.
“Obviously a part of our game that really struggled tonight was rebounds. Their offensive rebounding just killed us. Part of that is shooting percentage. We shot 33-percent and that gave them a few more opportunities. We worked incredibly hard, we knew they were a good offensive rebounding team but we still clearly struggled with that.”
Wawasee (1-9, 0-2) has some time to work on rebounding as the Warriors have a week off until they host Elkhart Memorial for a 7:30 p.m. tip next Friday.
NorthWood (11-1, 2-0) will travel to New Prairie Tuesday night.
The Wawasee JV team suffered a rare defeat as NorthWood enjoyed a 54-32 victory. NorthWood (7-3) was led by Jared Hoffman’s 10 points. Wawasee (8-2) was led by a nine-point effort from Will Geer.
