Riders pull away from Cards

NEW BREMEN - The defensive strategy of New Bremen was clear from the start: take Austin Parks out of his game. And the Cardinals did exactly that, not allowing the St. Marys senior any good looks in the first half.

But Evan Angstmann was left open, and took advantage.

Angstmann knocked down four 3-pointers in the first quarter as the Roughriders won a 60-43 battle of Auglaize County boys basketball teams on Monday night at the Nest in New Bremen.

The Cardinals put a great deal of physical pressure on the Ohio State-bound Parks from the get-go, not allowing him many chances to post up to go to the bucket.

"Proud of the way we played on the post," said New Bremen coach Cory Stephens. "I thought we played physical. They just hit shots."

With Parks unable to get anything going, the two teams looked set to play a back-and-forth game as the teams tied twice and exchanged the lead four times in the first 5 1/2 minutes. Angstmann and Jace Turner did most of the scoring for St. Marys while a committee of Cardinals were putting up points for the home team.

Angstmann's second trey of the opening quarter put St. Marys in front to stay at 14-12. New Bremen's Gavin Schrader hit a trey with 1:20 left in the quarter to make it 19-18 St. Marys, but Turner knocked down a trey of his own with 30 seconds remaining and then Angstmann applied the coup de grâce with a hoop-and-harm four-point play with 1.2 seconds left to give the Roughriders a 26-18 lead.

"It was a good start," said St. Marys coach Dan Hegemier. "I was disappointed that we didn't handle their pressure as well as what we should (St. Marys committed 22 turnovers). We'll learn from that."

"I thought we had good pressure," said Stephens. "At times, we tried to do too much with the basketball and turned it back over to them, We got shots up and didn't hit them. We hit them in the first half, but not the second half."

Angstmann worked to keep building the lead with another trey and two free throws in the second quarter to finish the half with 21 of the Roughriders' 36 points. Turner added nine points, while Aaron Thieman tried to keep New Bremen within striking distance, with five of his eight first-half points coming in the second quarter.

Parks finally broke free with a dunk to start the third quarter. The pressure limited him to just seven points - making all three of his field goal tries - for the game, but Angstmann and Turner continued to keep the heat on. Angstmann added seven more points in the third quarter to raise the Roughrider lead to 49-34.

Angstmann finished the night hitting six 3-pointers - tied for fifth best all time in St. Marys history - and scoring a game-high 30 points for St. Marys.

"Evan had a great game," said Hegemier. "Great shooting game and good floor game. He's showing the type of talent he has."

Turner added 15 points and 11 rebounds for the Roughriders.

Thieman was the only Cardinal to reach double-digits with 15 points. Hayden Zeller added eight points.  

"I'm proud of the effort the guys gave the whole game," said Stephens. "They played hard the whole game. They didn't look at the scoreboard."

Both teams are on the road Thursday. St. Marys (3-2) travels to Maria Stein to face Marion Local in the Hangar while New Bremen (1-1) heads to Hardin County to face the Hardin Northern Polar Bears.