By Brooke Apple, bapple
Monday, January 7, 2008

PAULDING — Jefferson traveled to Paulding looking to grab another boys basketball Northwest Conference win but the Panthers had another plan.

They prevailed over the Wildcats, using a 21-10 third period, with a score of 45-41. Jefferson led 19-15 at intermission but appeared to have lost their entire spark after the break as they allowed Paulding to score 21 points in the third period. Jason Riley and Bryan Troyer drained some 3-pointers to go along with teammate Jacob Perl’s three baskets from inside the arc and his three free throws. Paulding ended the period with a 36-29 advantage. Jefferson came out a little stronger for the final period but was unable to get enough going to make up for the Panthers’ huge third quarter as they fell just short of the rally. The Wildcats had some opportunities to take the lead but their shots were not falling and they were forced to foul. They started playing a little more strategy game with their post players in the final period as they kept a constant substitution between Bubba Shivley and Matt Gerdeman, using Shivley on the defensive end of the floor and utilizing Gerdeman’s strengths on the offensive end. “When our leading scorers are only averaging seven and a half points per game, we are not going to win many games. We are a very well-balanced team but we struggle to find the consistent person to go to for scoring. We tried to get some offense and defense going with a post at the end,” explained Jefferson head man Marc Smith. The score was stuck at zero for the first 2:20 of the contest until Jefferson’s Michael Wiltsie drained a 3-point goal. That gave the Wildcats a little bit of momentum for a while but Riley thought otherwise as he came down a little later to hit a three of his own. Jefferson had the lead for almost the whole quarter but there was a time Paulding had a 7-3 lead. The Wildcats seemed to have lost a little bit of their spark but never gave up and scored the final eight for an 11-7 lead out at the end of the first quarter. “Our defense was good but you are not going to win many games with only scoring 41 points. Our intensity was good and our ballhandling was average,” ended Smith. The teams’ defenses played a tight second quarter as both only tallied eight points. Jefferson shot a higher percentage — 60 percent to the Panthers’ 50 percent. Jefferson was able to play hard enough to keep a lead and take an even bigger lead than at the end of the first to the locker room as they were up by four at halftime. Jefferson outrebounded the Panthers 23-17 and shot 21 percent better than Paulding from the charity stripe for the night. The Wildcats fall to 4-4 (0-3 NWC) and will travel in the opposite direction to Coldwater tonight. In JV action, the Panthers prevailed 40-34. The Panthers were topped by Eric Beck with 14; the Wildcats were guided by Tyree DeWitt with 8.