Cardinals upend Minster with comeback
MINSTER — Minster led by as many as 11 points on Friday night, but a strong second half performance by New Bremen sparked a comeback for the Cardinals, winning 46-42 in Midwest Athletic Conference action.
The Cardinals outscored the Wildcats 16-5 in the fourth quarter.
Picking up action in the middle of the third quarter, Minster’s Brogan Stephey hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key to make it 33-22, Minster’s biggest lead of the game.
At the end of the quarter, New Bremen’s Dave Homan scored on a transition layup to make it a 37-30 heading into the final stretch.
Nathan Rindler score on a putback for New Bremen following a missed 3-pointer to make it 37-32 with seven minutes left.
Stephey hit one of two free throws to push the lead back to six but the Cardinals’ Reece Busse would hit four free throws in a row on back-to-back possessions to make it 38-36.
The next scoring play came when Homan stole the inbounds and took it the other way for the layup, and was fouled on the play. He missed the free throw but the game was now tied.
With 5:10 left, Busse scored in transition and the Cardinals grabbed its first lead of the game at 40-38.
Following a timeout by New Bremen, Nick Alig was called for a foul on Stephey, which put the Wildcats in the bonus. Stephey sunk both to tie the game back up.
On Minster’s next possession, Homan stole the ball at half-court and raced the other way for a layup.
The Cardinals would steal the ball again on the following possession, the steal this time coming from Alig, who laid it up on the left side to make it 4440.
Both teams turned up the defensive pressure and there was no scoring until about one minute left when Austin Wellman hit a runner on the left side to make it 44-42.
Trevor Bergman was fouled on the Cardinals next possession, but missed both free throws, giving Minster a chance with 29.4 seconds left.
The Wildcats took a timeout to draw something up, but they were called for a 5-second violation when trying to inbound the ball.
Minster fouled Alig, who made one of two from the line to make it 45-42.
Still with a chance, Minster got the ball into the front court, but Alig was able to poke the ball away from Wellman and Nathan Rindler came up with the ball and threw it to Bergman.
Minster fouled Bergman and made one of his two free throws to make it a 4-point game, securing the win for the Cardinals, completing the comeback.
Defensive intensity was the key to the Cardinals win on Friday, New Bremen coach Cory Stephens said.
“Holding them to one shot per possession. In quarters one, two and three, they [Minster] did a great job of getting offensive rebounds and second chance opportunities,” he said. “In the fourth quarter, I’d like to say they didn’t get very many offensive rebounds so they didn’t get those second-chance shots. We tell them, ‘If you play hard on the defensive end, the ball will go in on the offensive end. You might not shoot it the best every night, but you can control what you can on defense with your effort and attitude.’”
For Minster, coach Mike McClurg said when the game got tight, his team didn’t make enough shots.
“I think we turned it [over] late a couple of times late on the under out-of-bounds, similar to that sideline when we got that 5-second call. That can’t happen,” he said. “Our under, sideline situational type stuff got us. They got five points from it. The game got tight and we had a couple [possessions] where we didn’t hit shots. We missed free throws late. If we make some of those free throws, it’s a different end result. I don’t know if it was gas, I think it was more that we’re not ready to win that game yet. We’re going to be a working process.”
McClurg commented on the play of the freshman Stephey, who hit five 3-pointers to go with is game-high 24 points.
“He’s a dude. He wants that moment,” he said. “If we got the ball inbounded [at the end of the game] we were going to go to him. I think he wants the ball and I think he’s prepared for it. It doesn’t make me nervous at all, I’ve got him for four years. We needed every bit of it. That’s going to have to balance in games, we’re going to have to figure out where our other scoring is going to come from, but he played well tonight and kept us in the game.”
Being a rivalry game, Minster’s gymnasium was loud all night, with Stephens calling it a “tournamentstyle atmosphere.”
“That’s what you get when you get a rivalry early in the year,” he said.
Score by quarters
New Bremen 9 10 13 14 -- 46 Minster 15 12 11 4 -- 42
NEW BREMEN (46)
Aaron Thieman 2-1-0-0-7; Trevor Bergman 1-0-1-6-3; Nick Alig 2-1-1-28; Reece Busse 3-0-4-6-10; Ben Wells 0-0-0-0-0; Tate Roetgerman 0-1-00-3; Nathan Rindler 2-0-0-0-4; Dave Homan 5-0-1-3-11. TOTALS 15-3-717-46
MINSTER (42)
Zach Fortman 1-0-0-2-2; Austin Wellman 1-0-0-0-2; Noah Piipari 0-0-2-2-2; Brogan Stephey 3-5-3-624; Devan Wuebker 2-1-1-1-8; Johnny Nixon 1-0-0-2-2; James Niemeyer 1-0-0-0-2. TOTALS 9-6-6-13-42.