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Rochester hits 11 treys, commits only 6 turnovers
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
SOUTH WHITLEY — As Whitko boys basketball coach Robert Warrick called timeout to stop the momentum with his team trailing 14-7 in the first quarter against visiting Rochester Friday, Zebra senior forward Tanner Reinartz could be heard exclaiming, “Boom!”
The booms would make Whitko go bust.
Drew Bowers hit three 3-pointers and scored a game-high 19 points, and Reinartz poured in four 3-pointers and added 14 for Rocheter in a wire to wire 60-44 win over Whitko.
Rochester hit 11 3-pointers with six different players making at least one. Rochester also was safe with the ball, committing six turnovers as compared to Whitko’s 18.
Riley Harman led Whitko with 13 points, and freshman Chandler Cox added 10.
Rochester improved to 6-2 overall and 1-1 in the Three Rivers Conference. Whitko fell to 2-8, 1-2. Rochester beat Whitko for the third straight year.
Bowers scored seven points in the decisive first quarter in which Rochester amassed a 21-9 lead. They stayed ahead by double digits the rest of the way.
“We came out of the locker room, and I thought we got going pretty good,” Rochester coach Rob Malchow said. “We did a better job. Against Bremen, we had some opportunities to get up by nine, 10 points to kind of extend it, and just a couple turnovers that allowed them to score and stay in it, and they got really close at the end.”
Whitko got within 44-32 in the third quarter on Cox’s driving banker in transition from the right of the basket, but Grant Clark hit a free throw to push the lead to 13 going into the fourth. A Reinartz triple and a Bowers layup off a back cut got the lead to its peak at 50-32.
“Our points of emphasis were to put the ball on the bounce more, make sure we get the ball high on the glass when we get to the rim so we can convert better around the bucket, and we wanted to put a lot of pressure on the ball no matter what defense we’re in,” Malchow said. “I thought in our man-to-man, we did a good job tonight. And our man was something we hadn’t done well all year, and we turned them over even with our man, so that’s something I hope we build off.”
Moving the ball from side to side with ball reversals and diagonal passes to the weak side, the Zebras hit five treys in the first quarter. Reinartz, Bowers and Paulik each hit a 3 for their first nine points, and a backcourt steal from Prater led to a Baugher layup in transition made it 11-4.
Rochester is 2-0 since Malchow inserted Paulik into the starting lineup. After committing 20 turnovers against Bremen in their previous game, Paulik called the improved ball security a “game changer.”
“It felt like we couldn’t miss in that first quarter,” Paulik said. “We were on fire. We came out with great energy, unlike in the past where we came out a little bit flat against teams like Northwestern and (Tippecanoe) Valley. But we really got to figure it out at the start of this game.”
Freshman big man Davin Day scored a 3-point play for the Wildcats, but Reinartz answered with a 3 as a trailer in transition to get the lead back to seven.
Bowers scored the first two baskets after the timeout – one in the post and another short banker off a Jack Reffett assist – to make it 18-7.
Whitko senior point guard Jaylen Gibson answered with a pullup, but Gibson would not score again.
Clark then became the fourth different Zebras of the quarter to make a 3 and increase the lead to 12.
“We just didn’t get out to shooters,” Warrick said. “They hit open shots, and that’s kind of the game: Find the open shooters, find the open shot. We struggled just closing out under control. Again, we got blown by, then we required help. Our guys figured it out in the second half, but again a little too late.”
The lead would get as big as 17 in the second quarter as Bowers scored seven more points. That included a spin move on Hunter Long in transition after a Whitko turnover, a 3-pointer off an Owen Prater assist after Clark pried a loose ball free and a back door layup off a Reinartz assist.
Bowers played limited minutes and scored only two points in a 52-48 win over Bremen Saturday after suffering injuries to both hands in practice on Jan. 3. He was a much bigger factor against Whitko.
“Nice having him back on the floor,” Malchow said. “Owey (Prater) did a good job in his absence, but Owey does other things for us. We need a point guard, and he’s not the one we want. Even tonight, I got Drew out a little bit because he missed two practices this week, and he didn’t do anything just trying to get healed up, so we had Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to keep healing, so I was concerned about his conditioning. But he was fine. But I got him out anyway just to make sure he was OK, and then when he went out, I thought Owen did a good job at the point.”
Long hit a 3, and Harman hit two free throws to keep the lead at 37-25 at halftime.
Whitko won the JV game 43-35.
Rochester 60, Whitko 44
ROCHESTER (60) (6-2, 1-1)
Drew Bowers 8 0-0 19, Carson Paulik 1 2-2 5, Tanner Reinartz 5 0-0 14, Bryce Baugher 2 4-4 9, Owen Prater 3 0-0 6, Brady Coleman 0 0-0 0, Conner Dunfee 0 0-0 0, Jonas Kiser 0 0-0 0, Grant Clark 1 1-2 4, Jack Reffett 1 0-0 3, Xavier Vance 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 21 7-8 60
WHITKO (44) (2-8, 1-2)
Jaylen Gibson 1 0-0 2, Easton Grable 1 0-0 3, Riley Harman 3 5-5 13, Chandler Cox 5 0-0 10, Davin Day 3 1-3 7, Hunter Long 2 2-4 8, Ethan Yates 0 1-2 1, Lincoln Bowers 0 0-0 0, Crew Ebbinghouse 0 0-0 0, Caden Deneve 0 0-0 0, Isaac Irwin 0 0-0 0
TEAM: 15 9-14 44
Three-point field goals:
Rochester 11 (Reinartz 4, Bowers 3, Baugher, Paulik, Clark, Reffett),
Whitko 5 (Harman 2, Long 2, Grable)
Total fouls: Rochester 16, Whitko 12
Turnovers: Rochester 6, Whitko 18
Score by quarters
Rochester 21 16 8 15 – 60
Whitko 9 16 7 12 – 44
JV: Whitko 43, Rochester 35
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