New Hope 63, Wellington 37
CIRCLEVILLE — New Hope overcame some early shooting woes to send Wellington home on the short end of a 63-37 score Tuesday night.
New Hope’s early shooting problems helped the Jaguars to a 10-7 lead late in the first, but the Statesmen’s defense came through as it followed a three-pointer with back-to-back steals and buckets. The period ended with New Hope up 17-9.
A 12-11 second quarter in favor of the visitors left New Hope with a 28-21 halftime lead.
The Statesmen were 12-34 (35 percent) from the field in the first half.
“If you watch any basketball this time of year – I don’t care if you’re 15-5 or 5-15 – every game is a grind,” New Hope coach Shane Roese said. “We’re three months into this thing; legs are tired and you go through parts of games where you can’t make buckets and you’ve got to find ways to grind it out.”
Emphasizing defense was the focus for the Statesmen coming into the game and it worked as Wellington was only 7-24 (29 percent) from the floor in the first half and 13-50 (26 percent) for the game.
“Our last three games we lost to very good teams, but they all shot over 50 percent,” Roese said. “You can say they shot well because they shot well that night or do we need to clean up our defense a little bit?
“We put extra emphasis on our physicality and how hard we switched our screens. I thought the first half we didn’t make shots but in the second half our defense wore them down to where the offense worked.”
The second half saw New Hope doing a better job converting its shots as six of the first nine attempts went down while the Jaguars were limited to a single bucket in that run as New Hope’s lead ballooned to 43-23. The third ended with the Statesmen on top 48-31.
The fourth quarter started in a similar way as New Hope hit four of its first five shots to go up up 58-33.
The Statesmen were 14-22 (64 percent) from the field in the second half.
On a night when the Statesmen honored their seniors, it was a pair of seniors leading in the scoring column. Tyler Cook hit six threes to put up 18 points (seven rebounds) and Xander Rink had 17 (nine rebounds). Junior Nathaniel Ames had 13.
“I was just telling them in the locker room that we’ve got a lot of great role models, great chemistry, guys who understand their roles and play well together,” Roese said of his seniors. “It’s fun to come to practice with them every day. Even tonight we’re missing Hunter (Cavanaugh, back injury). Guys just picked up the slack, picked up a different role and got things done.”
(Cavanaugh scored his 1,000th point Saturday night for New Hope.)
Freshman Will Myers led Wellington (5-15) in scoring with 10 points and senior Noah Ehlers led his team with seven rebounds.
New Hope (15-5) will wrap up the regular season hosting Lebanon Christian Friday and Horizon Science Saturday.
New Hope 63, Wellington 37
Wellington — Gabe Levin 1-2-4, Bake Lewis 3-0-7, Tino Garcia Espinoza 2-4-8, Will Myers 4-0-10, Malcolm Wade 2-2-6, Noah Ehlers 1-0-2. Three-point goals — Lewis, Myers (2). Totals — 13-50 8-9 37.
New Hope — Gavin Ludens 3-0-6, Xander Rink 8-1-17, Landen Parker 2-0-4, Nathaniel Ames 5-3-13, Carter Engen 2-0-5, Tyler Cook 6-0-18. Three-point goals — Engen, Cook (6). Totals — 26-46 4-5 63.
Quarter scores 1 2 3 4 F
Wellington 9 12 10 6 37
New Hope 17 11 20 15 63
Unioto 60, Circleville 43
CIRCLEVILLE — Unioto had its three-point shot working early as the Shermans beat host Circleville 60-43 Tuesday night.
Three threes from Milee Smith and two from Kayairah Beard helped the Shermans to a 19-11 lead in the first quarter. Addison Edgington had 10 of Circleville’s 11 in the period.
Three more three-pointers for Unioto in the second helped the Shermans to a 36-23 halftime lead.
Smith led Unioto with 20 points and Mya Hamilton had 17.
Edgington finished the game with 21.
Both teams complete the regular season with 18-4 records.
Circleville will open tournament play at 2 p.m. Saturday hosting the winner of Wednesday’s Logan Elm/Waverly game.
Unioto 60, Circleville 43
Unioto — Magnolia Holbert 2-1-6, Kayairah Beard 4-0-11, Kiley Puckett 1-0-2, Mya Hamilton 6-2-17, Milee Smith 8-1-20, Kendal Walker 2-0-4. Three-point goals — Holbert, Beard (3), Hamilton (3), Smith (3). Totals— 23-4-60.
Circleville — Kaelin Burchett 1-0-2, Maddie Blakeman 1-1-3, Julianna Sims-Ross 1-0-2, Ally Thornsley 2-0-5, Kaylee West 2-0-4, Jocelyn McLaughlin 1-0-3, Addison Edgington 10-1-21, Mallory McConnell 1-1-3. Three-point goals — Thornsley. Totals — 19-3-43.
Quarter scores 1 2 3 4 F
Unioto 19 17 13 11 60
Circleville 11 12 7 13 43
Unioto 71, Amanda-Clearcreek 56 (boys)
Quarter scores 1 2 3 4 F
Unioto 12 23 18 18 71
Amanda-Clearcreek 20 12 5 19 56