By RICK SPRUNGER
The name of the game is still putting the ball in the basket.
Bluffton did that exceptionally well for three quarters in its 45-39 win over South Adams in the Allen County Athletic Conference season opener for both clubs Friday night.
The Tigers evened their slate at 1-1 on the young season. South Adams fell to 1-2.
Bluffton hit on 17 of 25 shots for an other-worldly 68 shooting percentage in those first three periods and seized command at 39-21 heading down the stretch.
And while South Adams showed the home club a finish on the strength of an effective full-court press, the Starfires never were able to get closer than five points and then not until there were only 0:29 left in a game that simply wasn’t as close as the final score would seem to indicate.
A Tucker Jenkins free throw inched it back out to 45-39 with 0:21 to play.
But South Adams’ Tytus Lehman missed a hurried three-pointer with his team out of timeouts in any event, and that was all she wrote.
“We shot it better than I expected,” smiled first-year Bluffton coach Craig Teagle after it was over. “I didn’t expect our perimeter shooting to come around until probably Christmas.”
Bluffton connected on four three-pointers during a 16-0 first-half run that propelled the Tigers from a 6-5 deficit with 3:35 left in the first quarter to a 21-6 advantage at the 5:32 mark in the second.
They never hit another three all night. They didn’t need to.
“Our ball movement was outstanding against their zone,” said Teagle. “We were able to work it around and get inside for good shots.”
Teagle was talking about another Bluffton surge, this one a 10-0 bolt over the last four minutes of the third quarter that vaulted the Tigers to that 39-21 spread.
They hit six of seven shots in the period, the last one a hurried, high-arching 15-footer from the left side by Cameron Williams that dropped through the net at the buzzer and that South Adams coach Garrett Krieg called “deflating.”
All but Williams’ desperation fling at the buzzer came from directly under or in front of the basket, including three in a row from Jenkins.
Williams had also swished a buzzer-beating three-pointer at the end of the first quarter.
Those two last-second heaves proved to be mighty important.
A three-pointer by Lehman reduced the Bluffton lead to that 44-39 margin with 29 ticks remaining.
Take away those two Williams buzzer-beaters and see where that leaves you.
“We had opportunities, but we wouldn’t look up the floor,” commented Teagle about the South Adams press that got the Starfires back in the game. “My hat’s off to South Adams. Their kids played hard. When you’re down, 39-21, it’s easy just to roll over, and they did not do that.”
Bluffton spread most of its scoring out over four players.
The Tigers were led by Kaleb Green, who scored 14 points on 6-for-9 shooting with 12 of those points coming in the middle two periods.
Williams and Jenkins each added nine points and Elijah Garrett eight.
South Adams got a game-high 23 points from Lehman.
Teagle tipped his hat to the 6-3 sophomore — mostly.
“I didn’t mind his pull-up jumpers,” commended the opposing coach. “That’s just a good player making good plays. But I did mind him getting to the rim. That’s on us. In fact, of (South Adams’) 14 points in the first half, 10 were in the paint and around the rim, and the other four were on free throws. We’ll be working on that.”
Bluffton made it a clean sweep on the evening by taking both the junior varsity contest, 46-33, and the freshman game, 32-27.
The Tigers junior varsity players got 13 points from Nolan Lambert, seven from Jude Baumgartner, six each from Jared Moser and Griffin Morgan, five from Coleson Teeple, four from Eli Bertsch, three from Easton Blair, and two from Benjamin Maggard.
The freshmen were led by Jonah Geisel with 13 points.
Alexander Maggard added seven, Heath Johnson five, Abram Gehrett four, and Chanley Shaw three.
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BLUFFTON 45, SOUTH ADAMS 39
at Bluffton
SOUTH ADAMS (1-2, 0-1 ACAC): Derek McKean 1-4 0-1 2, Owen Wanner 3-10 3-4 10, Tytus Lehman 9-17 3-4 23, Noah Hunley 0-1 0-0 0, Conner Fear 2-5 0-2 4, Isaac Dee 0-0 0-0 0, Diesel Ziegler 0-0 0-0 0, Jax Wanner 0-1 0-0 0. TOTAL: 15-38 6-11 39.
BLUFFTON (1-1, 1-0 ACAC): Elijah Garrett 2-3 2-2 8, Cameron Williams 3-4 1-2 9, Tucker Jenkins 4-6 1-2 9, Axton Beste 1-2 0-0 2, Kaleb Green 6-9 2-5 14, Hunter Wenger1-3 0-0 3, Declan Grieser 0-1 0-0 0, Andrew Hunt 0-0 0-0 0. TOTAL: 17-28 6-11 45.
South Adams 6 8 7 18 — 39
Bluffton 16 11 12 6 — 45
Three-point Shooting: South Adams 3-17 (McKean 0-2, Wanner 1-7, Lehman 2-6, Fear 0-2), Bluffton 5-11 (Garrett 2-3, Williams 2-3, Jenkins 0-1, Beste 0-1, H. Wenger 1-2, Grieser 0-1). Rebounds: South Adams 19 (Lehman 7), Bluffton 20 (Green 5). Turnovers: South Adams 8, Bluffton 11. Personal fouls: South Adams 11, Bluffton 15. Fouled Out: None. Technical Fouls: None.
Junior Varsity: Bluffton 46, South Adams 33.
Freshmen: Bluffton 32, South Adams 27.
