Jamie Baker posted on January 27, 2012 23:50
By DAVE HANNEMAN
STAFF WRITER
TOLEDO — There’s good. There’s better. And there is best.
After two matchups with Toledo Whitmer, however, Jim Rucki and the Findlay High Trojans are still trying to figure out how to conjugate the offense to get those results.
“We can’t run anything against those guys. I don’t know what the answer is,” Rucki said Friday after Whitmer walloped the Trojans 52-36 in a Three Rivers Athletic Conference game at Whitmer.
Whitmer, 12-2 and ranked No. 8 among Ohio’s Division I schools, improved to 7-2 in the TRAC and maintained a share of the league lead with Toledo Central Catholic and Toledo St. John’s. Findlay, hoping to avenge an earlier 65-38 loss to Whitmer and remain among the league leaders as well, is 9-4, 5-3.
Six weeks ago, Whitmer took control of the game by dominating the second quarter. It took a bit longer Friday, but the results were the same.
Leading just 21-20 at the half, Whitmer opened the third quarter with a flurry. Nigel Hayes, a 6-foot-7 junior forward, ignited things with his third slam of the game, an up-and-under reverse dunk off a drive along the baseline.
Leroy Alexander then picked up the torch ... literally.
The 6-2 guard, a transfer from Springfield, scored off a steal by Ricardo Smith, hit a 3-pointer and followed with another jumper.
By the time C.J. Gettys hit a short bank shot to break Findlay’s 41/2-minute second-half drought, Whitmer had padded its lead to 30-20 and was getting comfortable.
Alexander, who scored nine of his 11 points in the third quarter, capped an 11-2 Whitmer run with his fourth straight basket. The Panthers led 38-25 after three periods of play and pushed the lead to 46-27 with an 8-0 run early in the fourth quarter.
“I got on Leroy in the locker room,” said Whitmer coach Bruce Smith. “I didn’t think he played well in the first half, but he really picked it up in the third quarter.”
Gettys led Findlay with 20 points and inched closer to the 1,000-point career milestone. The 6-11 senior center has 965 career points, seventh on the school’s all-time list.
Gettys helped Findlay keep it close early, scoring eight points in the first quarter and 14 in the first half. Michael Clark’s 3-pointer, Austin Gutting’s 3-point play and Gettys’ basket pulled Findlay within a point at the half.
A slight adjustment helped turned the tables in the second half.
“In the first half, C.J was getting the ball in the sweet spot where he wanted it,” Smith said.
“He was resting on defense. So we brought his man out to make him guard Nigel on the ball screen. We wanted to make him move more and get him out of that comfort zone.”
Hayes led the Panthers with 18 points and eight rebounds. He also had four blocks and four steals.
Smith added 12 points and teamed with Alexander and Hayes to apply the perimeter defensive that shut Findlay down all night.
Boston Ballmer, Findlay’s top 3-point shooter who had knocked down 13 “3s” in the Trojans’ last three games, managed only one 3-point attempt against Whitmer.
“We have athletic kids on the perimeter, and when you do you have to challenge the other team,” Smith said.
“You have to give Whitmer credit. They absolutely denied everything we wanted to do offensively,” Rucki said.
“Their size, their length, their strength, their athleticism, their quickness ... we couldn’t run much against that without making turnovers.”
Findlay had 20 turnovers for the game; Whitmer committed just seven.
Through the first three quarters, Findlay had 11 more turnovers than Whitmer (14-3) and that was giving an extremely good team too many extra chances. Although Findlay outrebounded Whitmer 31-21, the Panthers attempted 15 more shots (48-33).
“If we would play them again, we would have to be perfect, the way we come to get the ball, the way we set our man up defensively, the way we run our offense,” Rucki said.
“Now, we’re not perfect. Some times you can get away with that in practice or even in some games. But you can’t get away with it against these guys.”
Toledo Whitmer overcame a six-point deficit in the third quarter, built an eight-point lead in the fourth quarter and held off Findlay 57-53 in the junior varsity game. Marcus Elliott’s 17 points led four Whitmer players in double figures. Devin Dennard had 20 points and Braden Miller 10 for Findlay (7-6, 3-5).
findlay (9-4, 5-3)
Clark 2-6 1-2—6, Davidson 1-3 2-2—4, Peak 0-1 0-0—0, Ballmer 0-1 0-0—0, Gettys 9-16 2-5—20, Twining 1-2 0-0—3, Gutting 1-3 1-1—3, Todd 0-0 0-0—0, Wolfe 0-0 0-0—0, Dennard 0-0 0-0—0. TOTALS: 19-33 6-10—36.
toleod whitmer (12-2, 7-2)
Parker 0-2 0-0—0, Smith 5-13 0-0—12, JHayes 5-11 8-8—18, Alexander 5-7 0-0—11, Norton 1-5 1-2—3, Wormley 1-4 0-0—2, Hickey 1-3 1-2—4, Klem 0-0 0-0—0, Ashe 0-0 0-0—0, Clemons 1-1 0-0—2, Rublaitus 0-2 0-0—0. TOTALS: 19-48 10-12—52.
Findlay 10 10 5 11 — 36
Toledo Whitmer 13 8 17 14 — 52
3-Point GOALS: Findlay 2-6 (Wolfe 0-1, Clark 1-3, Twining 1-1, Ballmer 0-1); Toledo Whitmer 4-21 (Hickey 1-3, Smith 2-5, Parker 0-2, Hayes 0-3, Alexander 1-3, Rublaitus 0-2, Norton 0-3).
rebounds: Findlay 31 (Gettys 8, Ballmer 6, Davidson 5); Toledo Whitmer 21 (Hayes 8).
turnovers: Findlay 20, Toledo Whitmer 7.
junior varsity: Toledo Whitmer, 57-53.
Hanneman: 419-427-8408,
davehanneman@thecourier.com