Wildcats start MAC play with loss to Versailles
In a great defensive effort by Minster, the Minster Wildcats defeated the Wapakoneta Redskins 49-32. The Wildcats held the Redskins to under 30 percent shooting while the Wildcats shot the ball around 50 percent. Minster improves to 2-0 while Wapakoneta falls to 1-2.
Minster Coach Michael McClurg stated on the game, “I thought we were really good defensively. Outside of that first quarter when we let Niekamp hit a couple of threes, after that we got really good. I thought our communication
The Minster Wildcats started MAC play against Versailles in bowling action on Saturday afternoon. In the girls match, the Tigers defeated the Wildcats 2182-1702. In the boys match, the Tigers slipped by the Wildcats 2579-2507.
In the girls match, Versailles won the first set 709-545. Julia Mullins led the Wildcats with 138, while Carlie Gehret led the Tiger with 145. In the second set, Versailles also beat Minster 756592. Minster was led by Julia Mullins with 140, while Versailles was led by Carlie Gehret with 179. In the baker games, Versailles won each of them with scores of 138-100, 146-123, 144-121, 120-95, and 139-126, giving them a 2182-1702 victory. The Wildcats fall to 1-3 on the year (0-1 in the MAC) while Versailles improves to 1-2 (1-0 in the MAC).
Minster Coach James Sharp stated, “We’ve been working on a lot of different things at practice. The biggest thing is sometimes when you work on practice and you change their approach, was great, so we grew up a little bit today. That’s a really nice basketball team, well-coached, and well-balanced. We had them in size and we did a really good job on the boards in the second half. Second, third, and fourth quarters, we guarded our tails off. We had guys make big shots when we needed to make a bit of a run.”
Wapakoneta coach Trey Elchert stated on the shooting woes, “Credit to Minster, they did a real job on us defensively, but at the end of the day you’ve got to put the ball in the hole and we weren’t able to do that tonight.”
On their defense, the scores aren’t going to be there. Having the girls understand is that we’re on step 1 of this process, and your scores are going to go down. Once we get to step two, you’re going to start seeing it.”
In the boys match, Versailles won the first set 948-820. Brandyn Heitkamp led Versailles with 258 with Colten Groff adding 202, while Keetan Sharp led Minster with 213. In the second set, Minster came right back winning 868-761. The Wildcats were led by Rylan Edwards with a 202, while the Tigers were led by Blake Henry with 212. The Tigers held a slim 21-pin lead going into the baker games. Minster dominated the first baker game 220-154 to take a 45-pin lead. Versailles slipped by the second baker game 132-115 to cut the Minster lead to 28. Versailles won big in the third game 188-144, which led Versailles to take a 16-pin lead. Versailles won the fourth game with another great effort 218-158 to take a 76-pin lead going into the final baker game. Minster started off well and led by as many as 41 pins early, but after a quick talk
Elchert stated, “We pride ourselves on the defensive end of the floor. We weren’t really sharp early. We let their guards get going and when their guards have it going early, they’re a really tough guard.”
In the first quarter, both teams started out hot. Brogan Stephey started the scoring for Minster, but Kaden Page answered right back for Wapak. Cole McClurg hit a three, but Nate Metzger answered back. Kole Richard buried a 3 to give the Wildcats a four-point lead, but Zac Niekamp went 5 in a row to give Wapak a 9-8 lead. Richard with their coach, Versailles regrouped and only lost by 4 pins 182-178. This gave the final margin at 72 with the final 2579-2507. Minster fell to 3-1 (0-1 in the MAC) while Versailles improved to 2-1 (1-0 in the MAC).
Minster Coach Austen Vanderhorst stated, “It was a little bit of a rough one, we lost by about 70 pins. After the first game, I looked at the guys and I told them we needed to come back and bowl better. We did by about 20 pins and they let us get back in it. Going into bakers, we were down by 20 but won the first baker by 70-80, it looked good. 115, 140, 150 is not going to win you a lot of matches. The biggest thing was keeping up with the transition. I feel like we did a decent job at it, but we definitely could’ve done better. We missed a lot of easy spares. It’s hard to score 115 and win anything.”
The Minster bowling team will continue MAC play when they bowl against New Bremen at Miracle Lanes in Fort Recovery next Saturday with the girls starting at 9:15 a.m. and the boys starting at 1:00 p.m.