Bad News, Bears
But the simple truth is Snyder and the rest of the Knights could have wiped the floor with the Bears even playing barefooted.
The momentary loss of the shoe was little hindrance to Snyder who led the team with 20 points, 18 rebounds, and four assists, to help West Holmes pull out a 69-42 victory over River View and improve to 4-4 on the season.
“When we play a game like this we just keep going, we can’t take any team for granted and when the score gets like that the team just has to keep playing as hard as we can,” said Snyder.
After a close first quarter the Knights’ defense started putting on full-court pressure, which proved to be effective in the second, limiting the Bears to just four points. Attempting to pass around the press was too much for the Bears to handle, as 5-foot-9-inch sophomore Brady Arnold pulled the ball down for a steal, later passing to 5-foot-10-inch junior guard Keaton Leppla, who split a pair of free-throws, missing the second and allowing Snyder to fly in for two more points off the stick back, making the score 22-12 midway through the second quarter.
“We were worried about Arnold and Snyder, we’ve scouted the team before and they caught us off guard by the press, they did a good job executing and we did a poor job responding,” commented River View head coach Jason Trout.
The Bears put up a quick basket from senior forward Michael Adams, along with two points from senior guard Jamie Schwartz who got to the foul line on consecutive possessions and split both pairs, making it 24-16 in favor of the Knights.
Then the Bears went into an early hibernation as West Holmes went on a 25-0 run, highlighted by a pair of deep threes from both Arnold and 6-foot-1-inch junior Michael Dewitt who both took advantage of three turnovers committed by River View.
“Our focus was to come out with intensity and do things the right way for 32 minutes and we definitely took some steps in the right direction to a complete game,” commented Knights head coach, Jim Lindeman, who watched his team take a 41-16 lead into halftime. “We came out with defensive intensity, Michael Adams and Jason Hammond are good scorers and we were able to limit what they did. I give Jamie Schwartz credit for what he did with 24 points, we were able to limit everyone but Schwartz.”
On the other side, Trout said, “Our big weakness is we don’t have two 6-foot-6 kids, and we are in the learning process of figuring out how to defend those guys. We just made some mistakes at the base line, we didn’t box out and gave up too many offensive rebounds, we got it back within six and then went to 17.”
The Bears emerged from their slumber in the third quarter, but as they slowly regained consciousness the Knights were still able to put numbers up on the scoreboard early by being patient and passing the ball.
“Against their zone all a team wants you to do is take great shots, and we wanted to do our strength by getting to the baskets. Being able to move the ball around three or four passes we are able to get inside and into the rim instead of settling for a jump shot,” commented Lindeman on the Knights patient play.
With two easy baskets from 6-foot-6-inch junior post Donnie Dowling, and a breakaway layup from 6-foot-3-inch forward Ryan Neer – created when Snyder rebounded a missed free throw and threw a baseball pass above the River View defense – the Knights increased their lead by 20 points early in the quarter.
The Bears responded with an old fashioned three-point play by Schwartz off a foul by Dowling.
Then, with four minutes left in quarter number three the Knights seemed to ease off of their opponent a little bit, allowing the Bears to score nine points, and chop the Knights lead to 52-35 heading into the final period.
However, that was the only streak for the Bears as Snyder opened up the fourth with a quick steal, going coast-to-coast to get two points on the board for the Knights early, which set the pace for the rest of the quarter.
The Knights closed out the fourth quarter, against a Bears team that looked more like cubs, outscoring their opponent 17-9, as both teams emptied their benches with three minutes remaining.
“It’s fun playing against a front court like that where you don’t have to worry about posting up against someone, you just go out and play,” commented Snyder.
Barefooted or not, Snyder and the Knights had some very bad news for the Bears to kick off the new year.
Published: January 3, 2012
