Western Brown’s Spencer Smith lines up a shot against Goshen. Photo by Garth Shanklin.
Jet Jamison drives to the hoop for two against Goshen. Photo by Garth Shanklin.
Caden Zeinner scored 12 points and dished out six assists against Western Brown. Photo by Garth Shanklin.
Goshen’s Conner Moore scored 16 points against Western Brown. Photo by Garth Shanklin.
Carter Settelmayer drives to the basket for the Warriors against Western Brown. Photo by Garth Shanklin.
Western Brown’s Drew Novak throws down a third-quarter dunk for the Broncos. Photo by Garth Shanklin.
Western Brown and Goshen’s boys basketball teams engaged in a classic matchup on Friday, December 9.
Trailing by seven with just under a minute remaining, Goshen ripped off eight straight points to topple the defending league champs 51-50 in Goshen.
“Our guys kept battling,” Goshen head coach Miles Burton said. “We thought, second quarter, we were intimidated by some of that good 1-3-1 Western Brown is kind of known for. We decided coming out in the third quarter we weren’t going to let it intimidate us, we were going to try and execute our stuff.”
Goshen led 9-8 after one quarter on a late basket by Grant Steele. That lead grew to 16-12 with 4:35 left in the second period.
By the end of the second, Western Brown had gone on an 11-0 run to take a 26-18 lead into halftime.
“The first half more than the second half, our 1-3-1 trap kind of got to them, they turned the ball over,” Williams said. “We were able to get some steals and layups. Second half it wasn’t as effective until the end but we did get a couple stops early.”
Western Brown pushed the lead to 32-25 in the third quarter after a steal and a dunk by Drew Novak. Goshen responded, cutting the lead to one point entering the fourth quarter.
The teams traded blows throughout the fourth. Goshen led 40-37 with 4:52 remaining only to see Western Brown rip of a pair of quick baskets to go up a point. Carter Settelmayer hit a three to put Goshen ahead only for Jet Jamison to answer with a triple of his own.
Western Brown took advantage of two Goshen turnovers to go up 50-43 with 59.8 seconds left. They wouldn’t score again for the rest of the game.
Caden Zeinner made an off-balance three to cut the lead to four with 42.6 seconds left. Goshen’s defense forced a five-second call but the offense couldn’t score, prompting a foul on the Warriors.
Western Brown missed the front end of the one and one. Goshen grabbed the rebound and pulled within one on a three by Conner Moore with 24.2 seconds remaining.
Goshen fouled again and again the Broncos missed their free-throws. Moore cut into the paint and hit a tough two-point for what proved to be the winning basket.
“The kids hit big shots,” Burton said. “Settelmayer hit a big three, he’s a freshman. That’s the first time he’s ever been in this situation. Zeinner came back, struggled a little bit early but had a big three. Moore obviously at the end hit the three and the layup that took us over the top.”
Western Brown got the ball back with 8.7 seconds left but a near turnover forced a rushed shot from the corner that was no good.
Moore led the Warriors with 16 points. Zeinner tallied 12. Luke Ball tallied eight and three steals. Owen Widner (six), Settelmayer (five), Logan Haley (two) and Grant Steele (two) also cracked the scoring column for Goshen.
“Man-to-man defense we knew was going to be a problem,” Williams said. “We lost a lot of senior leadership last year that did a good job with that. We’re going to work on that, we tried some 2-3 zone and we’re not used to the rotations. When you have two or three kids like that who can shoot the ball really well like Goshen usually does they can get you out of that.”
Western Brown outrebounded Goshen 26-13 and shot 53.8 percent from the field. Goshen made seven threes in the contest.
Novak led all scorers with 18 points. He also had seven rebounds, six steals, four blocks and three assists. Ty Loudon had 13 points and eight rebounds.
Abe Crall finished with nine points and seven boards. Jamison had eight points and Spencer Smith scored two for the Broncos.
The Broncos finished the game three of 12 (25 percent) from three and five of 11 (45.5 percent) from the free-throw line.
“We’ve got to finish,” Williams said. “Seven, eight-point lead or whatever it was there towards the end. Not being in shape, we have to make free-throws. We have to find someone to get the ball to towards the end. It was a tough loss.”
Goshen currently sits 2-3 overall, 1-1 in the Southern Buckeye Athletic and Academic Conference’s American Division heading into a matchup with Batavia on Friday, December 16.
“We grow up more every single day,” Burton said. “We’ve had 29 practices and five games. The season goes by in the blink of an eye sometimes but it’s important for us as coaches to remember how young we are. These kids are experiencing a lot of stuff for the first time. Western Brown is a great program, it’s their league until somebody knocks them off.”
The loss dropped Western Brown to 1-1 overall. Western Brown hosts Wilmington on Friday, December 16.