By RICK SPRUNGER
Norwell is picking a bad time to go into a team-wide shooting slump.
One night after hitting a woeful 12 of 36 shots in a surprisingly close 36-35 win over a so-so (at best) Jay County team, the Knights were just about as cold in a 62-52 loss to Fort Wayne Concordia Saturday night.
The loss snapped Norwell’s 12-game winning streak and left it at 19-3 on the season.
Against the Cadets, Norwell managed just 18-for-51 (.353) accuracy — and that includes an uncontested Lleyton Bailey layup at the final buzzer.
“We obviously didn’t shoot the ball well tonight,” a baffled Norwell coach Mike McBride said quietly after it was over. “We didn’t finish well inside. I don’t know if we were rushing things, but we didn’t shoot well from outside, either. Even our transition opportunities, we didn’t convert.”
At least against Jay County, the poor shooting was limited to three-point range. Against Concordia, the Knights weren’t hitting from anywhere.
They did connect on five three-pointers in the first quarter in surging to a 17-14 lead, a hint that they had left the previous night’s shooting woes in Portland, but it was not to be.
After Luke McBride’s second triple of the game with 0:36 left in that opening quarter, they didn’t hit another trey until Ashton Federspiel connected from the corner to trim the margin to 56-50 with 0:58 left in the game — almost too late to matter.
In between the two, they missed 10 in a row.
Of course, it wasn’t all just poor Norwell shooting.
A pretty good (14-6) Concordia club, and especially Ajani Washington, had plenty to say about who won that game.
Washington, a highly-recruited 6-2 junior and already a 1,000-point career scorer, dropped 28 on the Knights on 12-for-20 shooting, including four three-pointers.
“Washington had a big game for them,” acknowledged McBride later. “He’s been struggling lately, but he came out of it tonight. We made some adjustments on him at halftime. We tried to deny him the ball and get extra help on him.”
He scored 17 of his points in the first half, including a 15-footer from the lane that gave his team a 30-28 lead at the intermission.
He then added a baseline drive 18 seconds into the second half and a three-pointer moments later that made it 35-29 and ensured that Norwell would be playing catch-up the rest of the night.
Two free throws apiece by Jake Parker and Cohen Bailey narrowed the margin to 35-33, but that was as close to the Cadets as Norwell would come the rest of the game.
It was 46-39 after three quarters, and with Norwell’s transition opportunities few and far between and the Knights hitting just one of 10 third-quarter shots from anywhere, that seven-point margin was looking bigger and bigger.
The Cadets successfully kept a half-court tempo by taking care of the basketball (just five turnovers), shooting nearly 50 percent from the field (23-for-48 for .479), and using its size advantage (they go 6-6, 6-5, 6-5, 6-4) to pound Norwell on the glass, 35-29.
The Knights got it down to five for the last time at 48-43 on a Lleyton Bailey shot with 4:18 left.
But Concordia spun off six quick ones to kick it out to 54-43 with 2:28 to play.
Norwell had one last glimmer of hope after that Federspiel three-pointer knocked it down to 56-50 with 0:58 remaining.
After a timeout, Federspiel intercepted Concordia’s inbounds pass and got it to Lleyton Bailey on the right wing.
But his shot was off the mark, and McBride’s rebound putback rolled off the rim.
“We had two chances in that sequence to get it down to three or four, but we just couldn’t take advantage of opportunities,” said the elder McBride of an offensive series that summed up Norwell’s night in a microcosm.
Luke McBride led Norwell in scoring with 16 points but was an uncharacteristic 5-for-15 from the floor.
Cohen Bailey joined him in double figures with 10, and Parker added nine before fouling out with 0:27 left.
But no one else scored more than six.
Norwell won the reserve contest, 51-46.
Kaedyn Quintanilla and Owen Wallis each scored 14 points for Norwell, while Brady Smith added eight points and Caiden Petrie and Garry Riley two apiece.
Concordia took the freshman game, 45-39, despite 19 points by Noah Schamerloh, seven by Noah Comer, and two apiece by Grant Shelton and Luke Ward.
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CONCORDIA 62, NORWELL 52
FORT WAYNE CONCORDIA (14-6): Ajani Washington 12-20 0-0 28, David Speckhard 4-6 3-3 13, Alan Ter Molen 1-4 0-2 2, Joe Tapp 3-8 2-3 8, Cole Hayworth 2-6 1-2 5, Avery Cook 0-2 4-4 4, Grant Hayworth 1-1 0-0 2, Ben Bentz 0-1 0-0 0. TOTAL: 23-48 10-14 62.
NORWELL (19-3): Gavin Hoeppner 2-4 0-0 6, Jake Parker 3-8 2-2 9, Lleyton Bailey 2-7 0-0 4, Luke McBride 5-15 4-5 16, Brody Bolyn 1-5 0-0 2, Luke Graft 0-2 0-0 0, Ashton Federspiel 1-2 2-2 5, Cohen Bailey 4-8 2-4 10. TOTAL: 18-51 10-13 52.
Concordia 14 16 14 18 — 62
Norwell 17 11 9 15 — 52
Three-point shooting: Concordia 6-18 (Washington 4-9, Speckhard 2-3, Ter Molen 0-3, Tapp 0-1, C. Hayworth 0-2, Bentz 0-1), Norwell 6-21 (Hoeppner 2-4, Parker 1-5, L. Bailey 0-5, McBride 2-6, Federspiel 1-1). Rebounds: Concordia 34 (C. Hayworth 8, Washington 7, Tapp 5), Norwell 29 (Bolyn 5, Graft 5, C. Bailey 5). Turnovers: Concordia 5, Norwell 5. Personal fouls: Concordia 15, Norwell 16. Fouled Out: Parker. Technical fouls: None.
Junior Varsity: Norwell 51, Concordia 46.
Freshmen: Concordia 45, Norwell 39.
