UNION CITY – Mississinawa pulled away from Twin Valley South in the 2nd quarter and put together a solid game from start to finish to pick up a 55-35 WOAC win over Twin Valley South.
For the first five minutes of the opening quarter Twin Valley South and Mississinawa Valley were tied 10-10 and it looked like the two teams were set to tangle for a full 32 minutes.
The Hawks opened up with an 8-5 lead on a lay-up from Caden Hanes and back-to-back triples from Cing Scott.
Twin Valley countered with a triple from Aiden White and back-to-back buckets from Trent Ray to make the score 8-7.
Scott got through the lane for a layup only to see Ray drain a long range shot to tie the game at 10-10.
Kyle Wehrkamp answered with a corner triple, that was followed by back-to-back layups from Hanes to forge ahead 17-10.
Trent Ray broke the run with a bucket to end the first quarter with the Panthers trailing 17-12.
In the second quarter it was all Mississinawa spurned by their defense they were able to make the taller and bigger South players uncomfortable with their man-to-man pressure.
That pressure led to some turnovers for some easy Hawk scores and frustration from South led to free throws for Mississinawa who converted 6 of 7 tosses for a 12-point 2nd quarter while the Panthers scored just three points and trailed 29-15 at the break.
After putting together almost a near perfect first half Mississinawa Valley coach had to wonder if his team could duplicate that effort in the second half.
South with a sizeable advantage in length came out looking to exploit it, got some early scores in the paint and 10 points in the frame … but the Hawks added 12 of their own with seven coming from Scott to push their lead to 41-25 heading into the final frame.
Defensively Mississinawa continued to make life tough for Twin Valley South, and they were able to slow down Trent Ray who scored 9 in the first half, and he had just two points in the second half. South got some help from junior forward Parker Howard, he scored 8 of his 9 points in the second half but the Panthers just couldn’t find enough offense overall.
Mississinawa got 14 points in the final frame another six from Scott who ended the game with 26 to lead all scorers. Coming into the game Scott was 2nd in the WOAC in scoring at 19 ppg.
Mississinawa also got a solid performance from guards Caden Hanes with 11 points and 9 from Cole McGlothlin.
South was led by Ray’s 11 points, who coming into the game was 5th in the conference in scoring overall at 15.9 ppg, while Howard added 9 points.
Mississinawa Valley’s 55-35 win improved their overall record to 6-6, 3-4 in the WOAC a game behind TV South who is 5-6 overall and 3-3 in the WOAC.
When you look at where the Hawks are now you can’t help but think how close they are to being 5-2 in the league with two, two-point losses to Newton and Franklin Monroe.
And although those earlier losses are pain points for coach Jeff Vaughn and the Hawks they also show how his team has forged ahead and grown from it with the impressive performance turned in against South.
“Tonight was a great win, and I told the guys after the game that I’m happy we finally played a complete game,” coach Vaughn stated.
“We’ve actually lost four games this year by a total of 11 points and two games by four against Newton and FM. If we would have won both of those games, we would only have two losses in the league, right? So, I think this game shows how we’re growing, that’s all I can ask out of these guys. Tonight, our defensive effort was great and offensively we played well, there’s not a whole lot I can complain about, to be honest and I’m really proud of them,” Vaughn complimented.
Mississinawa will play at Fort Loramie on Saturday while Twin Valley South will play at Legacy Christian on Monday night.
Box Score
Score by Quarters
12 … 03 … 10 … 10 – 35 Twin Valley South
17 … 12 … 12 … 14 – 55 Mississinawa Valley
Team Scoring
TV South – P. Howard 0-4-1/2 – 9, E. Day 0-1-0/0 – 2, A. White 1-2-0/1 – 7, L. Carver 0-2-0/0 – 4, L. Barlow 0-1-0/0 – 2, T. Ray 1-4-0/0 – 11, Totals 2-14-1/3 – 35
Mississinawa – C. McGlothlin 0-3-3/4 – 9, C. Hanes 1-4-0/0 – 11, A. Amspaugh 0-2-0/0 – 4, C. Scott 3-7-3/3 – 26, K. Wehrkamp 1-0-0/2 – 3, T. Houser 0-1-0/0 – 2, Totals 5-17-6/9 – 55
