By: Joe Blystone
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
sports@thevillagereporter.com
STRYKER (November 30, 2024) – Three days before their season opener, coach Tyler Woolace and his Stryker Panthers lost three-year starter Daniel Donovan for an extended time with a lower extremity injury.
With their 6’6 leader on the sidelines, Woolace and the Panthers got key contributions from a number of players who had never seen a varsity floor before to build a big third quarter lead, then hang on for a 52-39 win over North Central in the season opener for both teams.
“We had a freshman (Cody Stewart) out there. We had three kids who had never played varsity basketball out there who contributed, it was awesome,” Woolace stated postgame.
“That’s the way we are going to be. We are not just a one man show. Daniel was where everything went through and now that he isn’t there, everybody has got to contribute like they did tonight.”
The Panthers outshot the Eagles 10-0 from behind the arc and outrebounded North Central 24-10 in the first half.
Jacob Myers and Bradley Williams canned two of those long-range shots in the first quarter, and Myers added a fourth chance putback with 45 seconds left to give Stryker a 10-8 lead at the horn.
“Jacob Myers got I don’t know how many offensive rebounds, but I think he got the majority of them,” Woolace said of his team’s whopping 10 offensive boards in the first half. “That was a big key to us. Losing Daniel, everything has changed for us.”
“We are trying to figure this out on the fly, but we knew we needed to get every second chance we could get because we aren’t as skilled now.”
Tyler Meyers baseline jumper 27 seconds into the second knotted the score back up, but the Panthers exploded on a 16-4 run to end the half to take over the game.
Point guard William Donovan used three penetration and kick outs for three-pointers, twice from Owen Rupp and a third from the freshman Stewart, then used a spin in the lane two more times for hoops in the flurry that put the Panthers ahead 26-14 at the break.
Andrew Batterson went corner to corner to bag two more triples to start the third to extend the Panthers bulge to 32-14 with 6:07 left in the third.
From that point, the road got bumpy as North Central’s 1-3-1 trap began to take a toll. Seven Panther turnovers in the third led to eight straight transition points, two buckets each by Anton Hegler and Jackson Poynter to help get the deficit below double-figures at 35-28 with 43 ticks left.
Another long triple, this time from Braylen Wickerham with 3.8 on the clock, boosted the Panthers back up 38-28 heading into the fourth.
“In the third quarter, it looked like we had guys in places they had never been in before, which is 100% true,” Woolace explained of the Panthers struggles versus the trap.
“They have never been where they have been, they always relied on Daniel. Now we have different guys in different places. Easily handled and we will fix that pretty quickly and the more time they get the better they will get.”
The Eagles didn’t leave just yet. Meyers scored on a stick back and Poynter got a transition layup to chop the margin again to seven at 40-33 with 5:03 to go.
With the Panthers swinging the ball around the perimeter, Donovan came open on the left side for the 10th Stryker three–pointer of the night to push the lead back to 43-33 at the 4:47 mark before the Panthers scored 5/6 from the foul line in the closing minute to put the game away. Stryker shot just 39 percent from the field, (18/46) but 10 of those were of the 3-point variety.
North Central hit 18/45 but were 0/17 from outside the arc. Hegler led all scorers with 18 for the Eagles while Meyers added 10.
Myers had 14 for Stryker and Rupp chipped in with 10.