Wellington bows out in district semifinal

WOOSTER » Wellington’s season came to a disappointing end March 5 in a 72-57 upset loss to No. 4 Akron Manchester in a Division III Wooster District semifinal.

The top-seeded Dukes were frustrated all night by Manchester’s constant defensive switches, and they responded with poor shooting in a frantic offense.

After an 8-0 run gave Wellington (19-5) a 16-13

lead late in the first quarter, Manchester responded with two straight baskets off turnovers in the final 10 seconds of the period.

With three quarters of play remaining, the Dukes couldn’t match up offensively and found themselves playing catch-up the rest of the way. They cut Manchester’s lead to seven with over six minutes to play in the fourth quarter, but went cold as the Panthers outscored them 11-2 over the next five minutes.

“That was a huge sequence,” Wellington coach Dan Gundert said of the first quarter. “I thought we took a punch early and then we came back and played pretty hard, got it back to where we wanted it, got a little bit of a lead and then we just went brain dead. There’s just no other way around it. We turned it over three times in the last minute, gave (Manchester) six easy baskets on fast breaks and you can’t do that against good teams.

“We knew we had to hit shots and our guards, we were shaky at the guard position tonight and then when we were getting open shots, because they’d missed so many shots, they didn’t want to shoot it and they were out of rhythm there and it was just a recipe for disaster.”

Manchester’s Jojo France led all scorers with 24 points. Big men Van Wallbrown and Nick Beans chipped in 17 apiece as the Panthers hit contested shots all game.

“We respect (Wellington), believe me, they’re a heck of a ball club. But I thought we switched it up quite a bit from man to zone and I thought it gave us a little bit of an edge,” Manchester coach Gene Schindewolf said. “(And) obviously when you’re shooting the ball well good things happen. I mean, you get your confidence . ... The stars were lining up.”

Maxwell Joppeck finished with 23 points and 13 rebounds for Wellington but couldn’t get the support he needed offensively from his teammates. Colton Schmidt added 16 points and nine rebounds but no other player finished near double-digits.

Joppeck, the Co-Lorain County Player of the Year in D-III, added four assists and a pair of blocks to bring his breakout season to an end.

“I am proud of our kids and when the smoke settles and we look back we’re going to be proud of this season,” Gundert said. “It doesn’t help the pain right now but I’m proud of our effort all year.”