By RICK SPRUNGER
It came down to Adams Central’s size and Bluffton’s ballhandling.
Just as Bluffton coach Karl Grau knew it would.
Adams Central raced past the Tigers, 87-55, Friday night in a game that saw the Jets repeatedly getting the ball inside to their big men for easy layups and Bluffton turning the ball over 21 times against Adams Central pressure.
“Their size hurt us,” acknowledged Grau in his office after the game. “We focused all week on boxing out and taking care of the basketball. And we weren’t able to do it. That (Adams Central) is a good basketball team.”
The game got away from Bluffton early.
Adams Central used a 13-3 first-quarter burst to take control at 16-7 and never looked back.
It’s an almost astounding statistic, but of Adams Central’s 33 field goals in the first three quarters, five were three-pointers.
The other 28 were all from within five feet of the basket.
“There’s really not much we could do about that when they’re 6-7, 6-5, 6-4, and our tallest player is 6-2,” said Grau. “We wanted to front them; we wanted help on the weak side. We didn’t do it; we didn’t do a quick enough job of it.”
That many shots from inside led directly to Adams Central hitting on 37 of 54 shots for the game for a sizzling .685 shooting percentage.
At the same time, Bluffton stood in and competed very well against the bigger Jets.
Bluffton was 20-for-32 itself from the field for a red-hot .625 shooting per
centage.
The problem was that the Tigers weren’t shooting the ball often enough.
“We were pressuring the ball out a ways,” said Adams Central coach Aaron McClure of Bluffton’s 21 turnovers. “But they were doing a nice job of getting it into their big kid (Tucker Jenkins). He shot it really well. They were either turning it over or getting an easy shot.”
Grau was especially pleased with the way Jenkins battled Adams Central’s bigs, 6-7 junior Isaac Schultz and 6-5 senior Ethan Poling.
“He went up and battled them,” said Grau of his 6-2 junior. “He got a lot of nice passes into the post.”
Jenkins ended up leading all scorers with 26 points on 11-of-14 shooting from the field.
He scored all 12 of Bluffton’s second-quarter points on perfect 6-for-6 shooting and actually hit 10 in a row before missing his last shot of the night from behind the arc.
Kaden Grau joined Jenkins in double figures with 12 points, 10 of them in the first quarter, to help keep Bluffton within striking distance at 29-19.
Adams Central placed five scorers in double figures, including Schultz with 21 on 10-for-12 shooting, Ryan Tester with 16 on 6-for-8, Poling with 15 on 7-for-10, McClure with 14 on 6-for-9, and Braylend Reber with 12 on 4-for-5.
Bluffton won both the junior varsity and freshman contests.
The Tigers won the reserve game, 43-30.
Cameron Williams scored 12 points, Kade Abbett 10, Nolan Lambert nine, Austin Geimer seven, Declan Greiser three, and Ben Maggard two.
Bluffton’s C-teamers won, 47-39, as Griffin Morgan scored 16 points, Marshall Gerber 10, Trey Bustos and Eli Bersch six apiece, Coleson Teeple five, and Landon Daniel four.
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ADAMS CENTRAL 87,
BLUFFTON 55
at Bluffton High School
Adams Central (8-4, 3-1 ACAC): Micah McClure 6-9 1-2 14, Ryan Tester 6-8 1-2 16, Braylend Reber 4-5 4-5 12, Isaac Schultz 10-12 0-0 21, Ethan Poling 7-10 1-1 15, Trace Maller 1-3 0-0 2, Hudson Conkling 2-4 0-0 5, Keaton Springer 0-1 0-0 0, Max Hamilton 1-2 0-0 2, Kolton Littler 0-0 0-0 0. TOTAL: 37-54 7-10 87.
Bluffton (1-10, 1-3 ACAC): Sam Baumgartner 1-3 0-0 2, Eli Garrett 0-1 0-0 0, Hunter Wenger 1-2 2-4 4, Kaden Grau 3-6 4-4 12, Tucker Jenkins 11-14 2-3 26, Andrew Hunt 3-4 0-1 7, Fletcher Wenger 0-0 0-0 0, Hutch Craighead 0-0 0-1 0, Kaleb Green 2-2 0-1 4. TOTAL: 20-32 8-14 55.
Adams Central 29 24 25 9 — 87
Bluffton 19 12 12 12 — 55
Three-point field goals: Adams Central 6-11 (McClure 1-2, Tester 3-4, Reber 0-1, Schultz 1-1, Maller 0-1, Conkling 1-2); Bluffton 5-14 (Baumgartner 0-2, Garrett 0-1, Grau 2-4, Jenkins 2-5, Hunt 1-2). Rebounds: Adams Central 20 (Schultz 5), Bluffton 15. Turnovers: Adams Central 5, Bluffton 21. Total fouls: Adams Central 13, Bluffton 9. Fouled out: None. Technical fouls: None.
Junior Varsity: Bluffton 43, Adams Central 30.
Freshmen: Bluffton 47, Adams Central 39.
