By: Joe Blystone
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
publisher@thevillagereporter.com
METAMORA (January 4, 2025) – Evergreen made plenty of mistakes in their game against North Central. The Vikings were guilty of 14 turnovers and missed several layups.
However, what the Vikes did was make up for those misfortunes, by using their speed to force 25 North Central miscues that turned into a barrage of easy baskets leading to a 73-57 win over the Eagles.
Evergreen is now 6-3 on the year. North Central dropped to 2-7.
“We have to clean up the turnovers.” Viking coach Kyle Bostater said postgame. “We’ve got guys trying to push the ball fast, playing at a fast level and that’s what we want. I think it’s something a little mental that happened tonight that we can clean up.”
“The good things were that we had a lot of guys involved tonight, we look to be balanced, and I thought we were for the most part.”
“One of the things we want to do is play at our pace, we want it to be fast. You could even hear them telling their kids to slow down. That’s what we want, the tempo to be at our pace and take advantage of our speed.”
Anton Hegler powered up baskets after two of Evergreen’s six first quarter turnovers to give the Eagles an early 4-3 lead but Troy Manz baseline drive gave Evergreen the lead for keeps with 6:09 left in the first.
Two more buckets from Manz, a pair by George Allendorf off two Viking steals, and Sean Rafferty’s long range howitzer bumped the Vikings up 16-6.
A Trenton Douglass triple, and then layup after another Viking turnover chopped that 10 point deficit in half, but Allendorf answered twice in the final 39 seconds of the first, the last off a Manz steal and dish to give Evergreen a 20-11 lead.
That lead grew in the second as Evergreen’s pace helped force 10 Eagle turnovers in the quarter. Will Johnson’s two baskets inside and fleet Wil Ruetz got to the rim for two more Viking hoops to bump the margin to 36-21 at the break.
Evergreen continued to build their lead in the third. Alex Fritsch canned a baseline jumper and John Herdman scored off a steal, then the Vikings little big man, Rafferty, stuck a baseline jumper and another deep triple to give the Vikings their biggest lead of the quarter at 55-34 before the Eagles’ Jackson Poynter tripled at the horn.
“Great guy, gives us great senior leadership,” Bostater said regarding Rafferty. “He brings that every single day at practice, and when he gets opportunities and makes shots everybody gets really loud because he is a very likeable guy, but he is very humble as well, he holds himself to a very high standard.”
An 8-0 fourth quarter burst fueled by three straight fast break hoops off turnovers in 32 seconds from Ruetz, Herdman and Manz gave the Vikes their largest margin of the night at 64-41 with 4:45 left before Douglass and Poynter scored the last 16 Eagle points to close the gap at the end.
Ruetz had 21 for Evergreen who shot 32/67 from the floor. Manz had 16 and Allendorf 12.
“Wil Ruetz did a nice job defensively tonight to create a lot of things, Troy was all over the place, especially in the first half,” Bostater said of two of his speedy junior guards. “He had probably 10 deflections and I’ll bet eight steals.”
Poynter had 20 for North Central, who shot 48 percent for the game, but was hampered by turnovers, 22 of which came the last three quarters. Douglass had 15 and Hegler 14.
Evergreen hosts high powered Otsego Monday night and North Central is at home against Fayette on Tuesday.
N. CENTRAL (57) – Hegler 14, Douglass 15, Poynter 20; Meyers 2; Reinbolt 3; Clark 3; Totals: 18-6-3 – 57
EVERGREEN (73) – Manz 16; Ruetz 21; Herdman 6; Allendorf 13; Fritsch 2; Rafferty 8; Johnson 5; Shrader 2; Totals: 27-5-4 – 73
N. CENTRAL 11 10 16 20 – 57
EVERGREEN 20 16 19 18 – 73
Junior Varsity: Evergreen, 42-23