VERSAILLES – The St. Marys Roughriders took advantage of two 6’7″ senior starters in defeating the Versailles Tigers 66-40 in Saturday night non-conference action.
Versailles jumped out to an early 7-1 lead at 5:50 in the opening period before the Roughriders took advantage of a 14-0 run to lead 15-7 with 3:02 on the first quarter clock. The visitors grabbed their first double-digit lead of the night, 18-8 with 40 seconds remaining in the first with the teams going to second-period action with Versailles trailing 10-18.
“Good things were happening for us and we played with a lot of energy then when it started to spiral we didn’t play with the urgency and the same energy that we needed to in order to win the game,” said Versailles coach, Travis Swank. “You can’t do that against a really good team like St. Marys.”
The Tigers continued to struggle with the taller Roughriders dropping the second quarter by a 19-8 score sending the teams to the break with St. Marys holding a comfortable 37-18 advantage.
St. Marys continued to stretch its lead in the third taking a 29-point advantage, 52-23 at the 2:22 third quarter mark, and taking period No. 3 by a 17-12 score to lead 54-30 with three quarters in the book.
“We have to work the ball offensively for us to be successful,” Coach Swank noted. “We’re not a one-on-one type of team. We have to continue to work the ball in our motion and hopefully, we’ll get better results when we do that.”
Coach Swank went to his bench for fourth quarter play with the quarter playing out to a 12-10 St. Marys advantage for a 66-40 final score.
“They are very well disciplined, they can beat you in a lot of different ways – they can take it inside on you and they have shooters surrounding everybody as well,” Swank stated. “It’s not an easy task and you just hope some nights they don’t shoot them in very well and tonight they shot it really well.”
The Tigers struggled at the line hitting just 3-9 free throws while St. Marys was 7-11 at the charity stripe.
“We didn’t shoot a whole lot (free throws) tonight but we have to be able to concentrate and knock them down,” said Swank. “We’ll continue to get more free throws up in practice and our Tuesday and Thursday morning shootarounds.”
Evan Angstmann, a 6’7” senior led St. Marys and all scorers with a game-high 21 points and 6’7” senior, Jace Turner added 13 Roughrider points. Versailles sophomore 6’1” Drake Ahrens led Versailles with 10 points.
BOXSCORE:
ST. MARYS – E. Angstmann 21, J. Turner 13, A. Hoenie 11, B. Steger 8, C. Owens 6, N. Payne 5, K. Fishbach 2 – TOTALS 16 7-11 9 66
VERSAILLES – D. Ahrens 10, AJ Griesdorn 8, C. Heitkamp 7, G. White 6, J. Schmitmeyer 3, C. Bergman 2, J. Watren 2, M. Briscoe 2 – TOTALS 14 3-9 3 40
3-POINTERS
St. Marys 9 (E. Angstmann 4, B. Steger 2, N. Payne 1, C. Owens 1, J. Turner 1)
Versailles 3 (G. White 2, C. Heitkamp 1)
SCORE by QUARTERS
18-19-17-12 66 St. Marys
10-08-12-10 40 Versailles
