By RICK SPRUNGER
A strong defense and an offensive surge starting the second half carried Bluffton to a 47-20 win over Southern Wells in first-round action of the boys’ Allen County Athletic Conference basketball tournament Tuesday night.
The Tigers, now 6-5 on the season, advanced to the semi-final round on Friday at Heritage, a 56-52 upset winner over Woodlan.
Southern Wells dropped to 2-9 on the season.
Bluffton came out of the locker room at halftime on fire.
The Tigers scored 12 unanswered points to start the third quarter and extended a 14-7 lead at the break to 26-7 with 5:33 left in the period.
“I thought we came out for the second half with a much higher intensity level, a much higher effort level,” said first-year Bluffton coach Craig Teagle. “Kaleb Green was a big spark for us in the second half.”
Green scored 13 of his game-high 17 points in the third and fourth periods, including a three-point play in the first 15 seconds that got the Tigers off and running.
The Tigers hit six of their first eight shots of the third quarter.
During that same third quarter stretch, Southern Wells turned the ball over four times in five possessions and missed the only shot it took.
“First of all, Bluffton played very solid defense,” acknowledged Raider coach Joel Roush. “They’re very physical, and they get outstanding help.”
Teagle was pleased with his team’s defensive play.
“We tried to switch onto (Chandler Oswalt) because he can hit from just about anywhere on the floor,” he continued about his defensive gameplan “We lost him a couple of times, but we got lucky when he didn’t hit his shots. We also wanted to keep (Evan Pennington) in front of us and (Perrin Gates) off the offensive boards.”
Whatever Teagle drew up must have worked like gold because Southern Wells struggled all night to put the ball in the basket.
“If it was a lack of effort, if we were taking bad shots or being selfish, I’d be a lot more upset than I am,” said Roush of his team’s inability to find the basket.
Southern Wells hit on just one of 15 shots from the field during the entire first half and six of 32 for the game for a .188 shooting percentage.
After missing its first seven shots of the game, Southern Wells got a three-pointer from Caleb Johnson to earn the Raiders a 6-6 tie with 1:28 left in the first quarter.
From then until the 5:01 mark in the third quarter, the Raiders only managed to score one point.
Yet, despite managing just that one point in the second quarter and seven in the first half, the Raiders were still very much in the game, trailing just 14-7.
“I thought in the first half we were solid defensively,” Roush continued after watching his team limit Bluffton to 5-for-21 shooting (.238) in the first two periods “We did a good job of hanging in there. But it’s tough to keep guarding when your shots aren’t dropping, and their physicality can just wear you down.”
Bluffton got over its first half shooting woes by canning 12 of 19 second half shots (.632), an almost startling improvement over its first half numbers.
“We shot a little better in the second half,” Teagle said with a smile.
Green started the second half with that three-point play, and Tucker Jenkins rebounded an Axton Beste miss for two more.
Green then stole the ball and got the ball to Beste for another bucket underneath, Jenkins ripped a three-pointer from the corner, and Green scored for that 26-7 spread.
At that point, C.J. Reber finally pried the lid off the Southern Wells basket with a 10-footer in the lane.
Beste answered that with a three-pointer and a bucket underneath for a 31-9 margin with 3:20 left in the third quarter that pretty much ended any remaining doubt.
Jenkins joined Green in double figures with 13 points for Bluffton.
The Tigers outrebounded Southern Wells by a 31-21 margin and committed just 10 turnovers, a mere five after the first quarter.
sports@news-banner.com
BLUFFTON 47, SOUTHERN WELLS 20
at Southern Wells
BLUFFTON (6-5): Andrew Hunt 1-4 0-1 2, Cameron Williams 0-2 2-2 2, Tucker Jenkins 5-7 2-5 13, Axton Beste 3-9 0-0 7, Kaleb Green 6-8 5-6 17, Declan Grieser 1-3 0-0 2, Elijah Garrett 0-3 0-0 0, Hunter Wenger 1-3 2-2 4, Benjamin Maggard 0-1 0-0 0, Nolan Lambert 0-0 0-0 0, Jude Baumgartner 0-0 0-0 0. TOTAL: 17-40 11-16 47.
SOUTHERN WELLS (2-9): Andrew Aker 0-6 0-0 0, C.J. Reber 1-2 0-0 2, Evan Pennington 1-4 0-0 2, Chandler Oswalt 0-8 1-2 1, Perrin Gates 2-7 3-4 7, Caleb Johnson 1-2 2-3 5, Landon Johnson 1-3 0-0 3, Joshua Aulbach 0-0 0-0 0, Trey Slusher 0-0 0-0 0. TOTAL: 6-32 6-9 20.
Bluffton 8 6 22 11 — 47
So. Wells 6 1 8 5 — 20
Three-point shooting: Bluffton 2-13 (Hunt 0-2, Williams 0-2, Jenkins 1-1, Beste 1-4, Greeen 0-1, Garrett 0-2, Maggard 0-1); Southern Wells 2-18 (Aker 0-5, Reber 0-1, Oswalt 0-7, C. Johnson 1-2, L. Johnson 1-3). Rebounds: Bluffton 31 (Jenkins 8, Green 5); Southern Wells 21 (Gates 6). Turnovers: Bluffton 10, Southern Wells 14. Personal fouls: Bluffton 11, Southern Wells 17. Fouled out: Oswalt. Technical fouls: None.
