Wawasee’s Becca Smith shoots over Central Noble’s Lydia Andrews Tuesday night. InkFreeNews photos by Mike Deak

By Mike Deak
InkFreeNews

ALBION – Central Noble took two paths to get to the same result Tuesday night in achieving lopsided wins over Wawasee in a girls/boys basketball doubleheader.

Central Noble Girls 55, Wawasee 33

Wawasee shot itself in the foot after working back into the game. Central Noble had plenty of ammunition to spare.

Wawasee trailed just 12-11 after a quarter, but turnover after turnover in the second allowed Bridgette Gray and Central to get going. Gray scored nine points in the second quarter and had 20 points at the break as the Lady Cougars broke out to a 10-point lead.

But as the turnovers hit double digits in the second half, Wawasee sat and watched Central convert transition bucket after bucket. Scoring close to two dozen points in transition, Central rode 10 of Meghan Kiebel’s 15 points as the Cougars pulled away for good.

“My frustration has been be consistent and play a full game, and we didn’t do that,” said Wawasee head coach Matt Carpenter. “When you get down 10-1 to a good team like that, and then fight back to 12-11, it just makes everything that much harder because you have to expel a lot of energy to get back.”

Gray had 26 points to lead Central Noble, now 10-2 on the season.

Becca Smith led Wawasee (3-6) with 11 points and six rebounds and Emily Haines had 10 points and seven rebounds.

The Warriors committed 16 turnovers overall and shot just 30 percent (13-43), but had six blocks and held Central’s star, Lydia Andrews, to just three points. Wawasee was playing its third game in four days after a doubleheader Saturday at the Norwell Shootout.

“We’ve had a few decent defensive games in a row now, but it doesn’t look like it on paper in a lopsided loss to Norwell and then again tonight,” Carpenter said. “Some of our fundamentals are improving. We need better lateral movement on the perimeter and finding the shooters sooner. But as we get through a season like this, you have to recognize things faster. We won’t have a lot of time to make adjustments between games with so many coming up.”

The JV game went long, with Central Noble winning 37-32 in overtime. Sitting in a 32-32 tie, Kyleigh Egolf scored four points in crunch time to lock up the win. Egolf had six points overall and Courtney Gray led the victory with 14 points. Kaydence Shepherd led Wawasee with nine points and Blair Harker had eight points.

Central Noble Boys 56, Wawasee 21

The slow burn of the girls game was more of a kerosene fire set by Central Noble.

As Wawasee tried to take the air out of the balloon from the opening tip, Central Noble forced a pair of quick turnovers that resulted in thunderous dunks. For a COVID pandemic not used to crowds and gym noise, Central Noble’s well-condensed faithful got loud quickly and backed its boys as the Cougars would start a huge run.

Central (7-1) led just 7-4 at one point in the first quarter, but soon embarked on a 24-0 run to blow the game wide open. In the first half, the Cougars held Wawasee to just two made field goals while building an astonishing 31-6 advantage.

Among the damage was a record set, as junior guard Connor Essegian scored his eighth point to set the program’s all-time scoring record. His three-pointer in the second quarter gave him 1,252 points, passing Mike Young’s 1,251 points as the school’s new standard bearer.

Essegian finished with 17 points to lead all scorers while Sawyer Yoder scored 13 of his 16 in the first half.

In what Wawasee head coach Jon Everingham described as an ‘uninspired’ performance, he took most of the blame for the loss.

“This one is on me, totally on me,” Everingham said, whose team falls to 3-4 overall. “I have to do a better job at being prepared and putting a game plan together to get us in the position to win. We have a great group of kids in that lockerroom who play hard, and I’m going to ride with these guys. But it starts with me, and while we played uninspired at times, I have to change that. This one is on me.”

One player Everingham noted was Collin Roberson, who battled with Logan Gard inside and finished with five points, two rebounds, two steals and a block.

“Collin had a good game, and we needed to see that from him,” Everingham said. “Us getting established inside is going to take some pressure off our guards, and I can see them pressing right now. Collin and Grant (Brooks) played well at times tonight, and we’ll need that as we get into conference play.”

Over in the other gym, Wawasee scored seven of the eight points in the fourth quarter to force overtime, but the Cougars scored four of the six in the fifth frame to take a 38-36 win. Sam Essegian led the hosts with 15 points while Ty Brooks had 10 points and Roberson had seven points and nine rebounds for the Warriors.

Central Noble’s Logan Gard blocks the shot of Wawasee’s Grant Brooks Tuesday night.