Coach Reeder motivates players at half, Jersey defeats Southwestern
PIASA - Stote Reeder wasn’t sure why his team was so slow during a forgettable first half tied at 16.
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The Jerseyville Panthers head coach didn’t know if it was something he was doing or just his players.
“I went into the locker room at halftime and said is it me? What is it?” Reeder said.
“We were really slow, and we don’t play that slow.”
However his questions produced answers in the second half as his Panthers worked their way to a 52-45 victory over the Southwestern Birds in Piasa on Friday night.
“We played really hard,” Reeder said. “Because we played really hard we kind of made up for some silly defensive mistakes. In the second half we didn’t do those, we played really well.”
Zac Ridenhour was the main force on offense for Jerseyville with 18 points as the Panthers improved to 5-4 on the season.
He was followed by Jacob Witt who tallied 11 points for the Panthers.
Southwestern head coach Jason Darr was overall not pleased with his team’s defensive performance as he stressed that they gave up too many close-range buckets, but did give credit to Jerseyville.
“We gave up way too much penetration in the paint,” Darr said.
“If you give a team two-foot buckets then you’re going to get beat, that’s just the way it is. We got to get better on defense, we’re not keeping teams out of the paint.”
“You can’t take anything away from Jerseyville, they get to the basket. It’s usually a good game when we play them and that’s why we have them on our schedule, we want to play good competition.”
Colin Baumgartner led all scorers with 20 points and Ben Lowis followed up with 13, but the Panthers main focus was on Baumgartner, the six-foot six-inch center.
“He went wherever he wanted to in the first half,” Reeder said.
“In the second half we did a better job of making it difficult for him to get to his spots and making him work.”
It was more amazing that the Panthers held Baumgartner in check despite the fact that they were missing their own six-foot six-inch center Drake Kanallakan and Reeder made it quite clear.
“It just sucks to not have Drake,” Reeder said.
“I feel good about being 2-0 without Drake, I don’t care what the competition is when you lose 11 points, 11 rebounds, three blocks, and a leader.
“That’s what Drake’s really been is a really good leader.”
Reeder expects Kanallakan to be back from his injury after Christmas break.
The first half was a sluggish affair offensively with both teams struggling from the field and only scoring on layups or hitting foul shots.
A big break for the Panthers came when Baumgartner picked up his second foul in the second quarter as the Birds were in the midst of an 8-0 run and led 14-10.
With Baumgartner out, the Birds shot more and more long-range shots, which didn’t go down.
Overall it was a tough night shooting wise, even when Baumgartner was in for Southwestern.
“I think we gotta go to the basket a little more than we do,” Darr said.
“We settle for a three-point shot instead of getting physical and getting inside.”
Jerseyville ended the first half on a 6-2 run and knotted things up at 16 apiece at halftime.
The game opened up more in the second half as both sides became more aggressive.
After Reeder’s halftime talk Southwestern actually got out to an early two possession lead, but Jerseyville bared down and chipped away at the lead and overtook it right before the fourth quarter.
The Panthers used a 7-2 run to make it a three-possession game with less than four minutes to play and rode the rest of the game out mainly at the free-throw line.
They held a couple of potential late rallies from the Birds when Baumgartner got a couple of separate and-one’s to cut the lead to five or six points.
With the loss Southwestern goes to 5-5 and have a game with the Williamsville Bullets at the Bowl in Jacksonville at 1 p.m. today.
It adds to the tough schedule the young Birds have to endure, which they hope will pay off later this season.
“We still got a young team and that’s some of the things we got to learn and figure out pretty quick,” Darr said.
“I told them in the locker room that it doesn’t get easier.”
Jerseyville’s next opponent is Chicago Brooks (6-1) on Dec. 22.
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