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Reinartz, Bowers score 12 each for Zebras
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Ian Cooksey Drew Bowers
Blain Sheetz is a 6-3 forward for the Tippecanoe Valley boys basketball team.
His job against Rochester at the RHS gym Saturday was to guard 6-5 Xavier Vance, grab rebounds and help alleviate the pressure that the Zebras defense put on teammates Davis Cowan and Ian Cooksey.
Sheetz did it all and added seven points to boot as the Vikings claimed a wire-to-wire 56-46 win. Cooksey led with 20, and 6-6 center Stephen Akase scored 12 of his 15 in the second half.
Valley opened the game with a 12-0 run and led by as many as 14 in the second quarter.
Rochester would cut the deficit to 50-46 with 51 seconds left before Valley would score the last six points to pull away.
Tanner Reinartz and Drew Bowers scored 12 points each for the Zebras, who could not overcome a scoreless first quarter and lost to Valley for the fourth straight year.
Both teams are 1-1.
Rochester switched its pressure package at halftime from a fullcourt press to a halfcourt trap.
Valley committed four turnovers in the first half and 11 in the second half.
Valley led 47-34 after a Sheetz free throw with 4:32 left when Rochester went on a 12-3 run. Reinartz started the run when he drilled a 23-footer for 3 with Akase closing out in his face. Sheetz split a pair of free throws before Bowers hit a 3 from the right corner that caressed the top of the rim before falling back in. It was 48-40.
Cooksey hit two free throws to get the lead back to 10, but Bowers hit a pullup in the lane. After Cowan was called for stepping out of bounds against a Rochester trap, Akase fouled Reinartz after he attempted a step-back 3-pointer. Reinartz hit two of three free throws to make it 50-44.
Cooksey then lost his dribble out of bounds, and Jack Reffett broke down the defense off the dribble and dished to Owen Prater for a layup.
But Akase split a pair of free throws, and Cowan dropped in two more from the line after a steal, which finished a ragged Zebra possession that included an Akase block on Reffett. Akase completed the scoring with a 3-point play with 1.4 seconds left.
“I felt like we didn’t play as well as we needed to against their pressure,” Valley coach Joe Luce said. “I thought their defense was not just active and aggressive, but I thought it was very well coached and schemed. They took away lots of different stuff like long opposites in the middle that made it hard for us. Their traps were very active and long, and the start of the game gave us a cushion that we were able to settle in a little bit so we could handle and get through some runs that they made.”
Cooksey scored the first eight points of the game on a pair of 3-pointers and a pullup 12-footer.
Meanwhile, Rochester could not finish at the rim against Valley’s man-to-man defense.
Akase got the defensive assignment on Reinartz while Sheetz guarded Vance and Cooksey guarded Prater.
“As I told them in the locker room, the things that I was proud of are the things that we can’t have happen,” Rochester coach Rob Malchow said. “Because you can talk about some positives in this, and there are some, but at the same time, there is some loser talk that goes with it if we revert to always being, ‘Hey, we played hard, we didn’t give up.’ That’s nice, but that’s not what you do when you win. And we have to execute better. … We got down to the ‘R (a spot in the lane),’ and the ‘R’ is a big thing in our offense, and we did not finish.”
Sheetz continued to make big plays against Rochester’s pressure from the high post. He found Owen Omondi, who had seven points off the bench, for a layup to make it 17-3. A left-handed finish off an Omondi assist made it 19-7. Then Sheetz passed from the left elbow to an open Omondi underneath the basket to make it 21-9.
While Bowers had two buckets in the quarter, the lead was still 25-13 at halftime. Sheetz’s role in building that lead was significant, according to Luce.
“He was unbelievably solid defensively,” Luce said. “He rebounded the basketball better than anyone. He did a great job of passing against the pressure for scores. He probably had five or six assists. He just did an excellent job of attacking their pressure with what I call scoring passes. … He had a great game. The kid’s solid. He’s a very, very smart basketball guy and understands where the soft spots are in that type of a zone press and had a great game.”
Rochester got within six twice in the third quarter, first at 25-19 after 3-point plays on consecutive possessions from Bryce Baugher and Owen Prater.
But a DeOndre Hamilton 3-point play took starch out of the Zebra rally, and Sheetz and Akase then helped each other out: Sheetz found Akase with a lob for a layup, and then Akase found Sheetz leaking behind the Rochester defense after a missed shot for a layup to get the lead back to 36-24.
But Bowers hit a 3, and when Reinartz drilled a 3 from the right corner over the Valley zone, the lead was down to 36-30 with 2:51 left in the third.
After an exchange of turnovers, Akase’s putback led to a 3-point play, and after two Reinartz free throws, Cooksey drilled his third 3 and later added a free throw to get the lead to 43-32 heading into the fourth quarter.
But another assist from Sheetz to Akase set up a layup.
Malchow called Valley “well-coached” and “pretty complete” after the game.
“Our halfcourt traps caused some problems, and it got us into a little bit of rhythm, and offensively, we started to come around a little bit and hit some shots,” Malchow said. “We started to frustrate them a little bit. I think we took Cooksey out of his rhythm a little bit. I know he scored well for the game, but especially the first 10 minutes he scored well, and then I thought we made a couple runs because we were making it hard for them to get him the ball. And boy, when he did get it, he’s good. And to his credit, he finished shots.”
Valley also won the JV game 34-29. Hunter Stage led Valley with 12 points, and Jude Kammerer had nine. Mason Miller, William Mellott and Colter Blackburn added four each, and J.J. Kammerer had one.
Brady Coleman had nine to lead the Rochester JV. Mitchell Clark had eight, Trenton Meadows had four, Aiden Wilson had four, and Parker Casper and Conner Dunfee had two each.
Tippecanoe Valley 56, Rochester 46
VALLEY (56) (1-1)
Davis Cowan 0 2-2 2, Ian Cooksey 7 3-4 20, Blain Sheetz 2 3-6 7, DeOndre Hamilton 2 1-1 5, Stephen Akase 5 4-6 15, Owen Omondi 3 1-2 7, William Mellott 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 19 14-21 56
ROCHESTER (46) (1-1)
Drew Bowers 5 0-0 12, Owen Prater 4 1-1 9, Tanner Reinartz 3 4-5 12, Bryce Baugher 2 4-6 8, Xavier Vance 0 0-0 0, Carson Paulik 0 0-0 0, Jonas Kiser 2 1-2 5, Grant Clark 0 0-0 0, Jack Reffett 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 16 10-14 46
Three-point field goals:
Valley 4 (Cooksey 3, Akase),
Rochester 4 (Reinartz 2, Bowers 2)
Total fouls: Valley 17, Rochester 22
Fouled out: Clark (RHS), 4:33, fourth; Prater (RHS), :1.4, fourth
Turnovers: Valley 15, Rochester 12
Score by quarters
Valley 9 16 18 13 – 56
Rochester 0 13 19 14 – 46
JV: Valley 34, Rochester 29
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