By GARY R. RASBERRY
grasberry@dailystandard.com
MINSTER — Don Vogt had some concerns as his Coldwater
team got ready to play Minster on Friday.
The Cavaliers had gone nearly two weeks without a game and the
fear of rust was in the air.
The fears were realized as Minster pulled away from the Cavaliers
in the second half for a 54-33 win at Minster Middle School
Gymnasium. The Wildcats picked up their third straight win to
go to 3-1 and 1-0 in the MAC. Coldwater evens their record at
1-1 overall and 0-1 in league play.
After making it a game for the first half, trailing 31-24 at
the break, the Cavaliers managed just nine points in the second
half, including just three in the third quarter.
“I’ll give (Minster) credit because they’re
a good defensive team, but our offense just sputtered,”
said Vogt. “We looked very out of sync. We looked like
a team that’s been off for two weeks. I’m not making
any excuses and the kids aren’t making any excuses.
“It’s just one of those things. I can’t explain
it. ... We have kids that can shoot and kids that can post up.
We just didn’t utilize either.”
Minster used a strong defensive effort to set up the offense.
Minster forced 16 turnovers, 11 in the first half, to score
some easy buckets.
“That’s kind of been our forte, you might say, because
we haven’t been consistent offensively,” said Minster
coach Mike Lee. “We put more points on the board tonight
than we had in the first three games, which is good to see.
It wasn’t a thing of beauty but hopefully it gets better.”
“It just put us behind the eight-ball early,” said
Vogt. “When the score stayed within eight or 10, that’s
when we started taking care of the ball.”
The Wildcats also took care of the ball, turning the ball over
just 11 times, with a number of them coming with the game well
in hand.”
“In terms of preparation, (Coldwater) is very athletic.
They’re only going to get better as the season rolls along,”
said Lee. “Playing St. Marys last week gave us an indication
of the quickness that we were going to see. It’s a credit
to our guards, they handled the pressure pretty much all night.”
Minster began its push ahead in the second half when Coldwater
was unable to score until the 3:33 mark when Alex Hoyng hit
a jumper. Afterwards, a Chad Miller free throw was all the Cavaliers
could score in the third period. In all, the Cavaliers went
for over a five-minute stretch spanning the third and fourth
quarters before getting back on the board.
Dane Sommer led the Wildcats with 23 points. The junior put
up plenty of shots to get his points — going 6-of-22 from
the field and 3-of-11 from the three-point line — but
was potent from the foul line, making 8-of-10.
“He’s our most experienced offensive player,”
Lee said of Sommer. “We wanted to get him as many shots
as he could.”
After Sommer, Lee got plenty of balance from his players. Josh
Boeke, Alex Stricker, Tim Cordonnier and Andy Beckman each added
six.
With the loss, Vogt was pleased by his team’s defense.
“I told the kids I will not fault their defensive effort
tonight,” said Vogt. “They did a pretty good job
after we settled down.”
Brent Robbins came off the bench to lead Coldwater with eight
points while Hoyng and Jay Miller each added seven.
Coldwater heads back to The Palace tonight to face Wayne Trace.
Minster takes the holidays off before hosting Newton on Dec.
27.
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