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Thursday, 28 February 2008 |
 New Knoxville sophomore Ryan Vanderhorst glides past a Temple Christian defender during Wednesday’s district tournament game at Wapakoneta High School. Staff photo/John Zwez
By BRIAN SMITH
Staff Writer
Workmanlike.
Less than a month after facing Lima Temple Christian and leaving the floor unsatisfied after the Pioneers crept to within 13 points by the end of the game, Dan Hegemier and his team used a balanced attack to methodically put away the Pioneers.
The Rangers had four players in double-figures and advanced to a Division IV district final with a 63-39 win over Temple Christian on Wednesday night.
“If you take the bye like we did, it seems like we haven’t played for a while,” New Knoxville varsity coach Dan Hegemier said. “Just getting the first district game out of the way is a good feeling.”
Ryan VanderHorst scored 16, Brad Piehl had 15, Austin Arnett added 14 and Tony Meyer scored 11 points for the Rangers, who shot 57 percent from the floor for the game and 62 percent in the second half.
New Knoxville’s defense ratcheted up from the last time the Rangers played Temple Christian. There were no easy trips up the floor.
“We watched the tape and we had to be better on the first pass,” MAC player of the year Tony Meyer said after the game. “So we got out and denied them. We rebounded a lot better and we shot well.”
Temple Christian’s Clayton Leimeister scored 25 points in his final high school game. The 6-foot-5 forward combined for 46 points in the two games he faced New Knoxville this season.
“We really didn’t make a whole lot of changes,” Hegemier said. “We knew that the Leimeister young man is a really good ballplayer. We knew we had to get on him, we knew we had to turn him. We knew they would walk the ball up the floor. We had to play good half court defense.”
“Clayton is a heck of a player,” Meyer said. “He can do a lot of things. We had to focus on shutting down the other players and helping out on him.”
Meyer and Leimeister played a game of who could show the most emotion on the floor, both pumping fists and screaming out to teammates after the pair had 3-point plays on back-to-back possessions.
“It’s really fun,” Meyer said. “You get talking to them and they talk back. You see what one another can do. It’s a pretty fun time.”
Facing New Knoxville’s pressure defense is not so fun. The Rangers scored 26 points off 22 Pioneer turnovers.
“We utilized our quickness,” Hegemier said. “We just didn’t want to foul. We got a little too greedy there in the second half, but we wanted to make them work bringing the ball down the floor.”
“They turned up the pressure on us moreso than what we saw at their place,” Temple Christian varsity coach Bruce Bowman said. “It made it difficult on our ballhandlers.”
New Knoxville will take on Fort Recovery on Friday night at 7 p.m. The Indians beat eighth-ranked Ada in the nightcap at Wapakoneta High School on Wednesday night.
Offensively, New Knoxville watched jump shot after jump shot rattle out. So the Rangers penetrated inside while finding the outside touch.
“I thought they attacked the interior of the zone probably a lot more than they did last time,” Bowman said. “They went into Piehl inside and we had to try to stop that to recuperate and then, of course, they got going with their outside shooters. That’s what makes New Knoxville as good as they are.”
The Rangers led 29-17 at the half after holding the Pioneers to just 4 second-period points. Temple Christian shot 2-of-10 from beyond the arc and shot 41 percent in the second half from the field. The game was played on Wednesday after a snow storm postponed Tuesday’s action. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 29 February 2008 )
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