On this night the Twin Valley South Panthers earned a huge early season road win in the CCC by downing the Tri-Village Patriots 58 – 48.

The Panther used their size, speed and athleticism to create mismatches and crashed the boards for second chance buckets. The Panther’s Ryan Innis nailed a 3 pointer at the 6:32 mark to put them up 5 – 2 and that was the closet the Pats came to the Panthers for the rest of the night.

The night got off to a bad start for the Pats as Ryan Buck and Tyler Greer sat on the bench early in the first quarter with two fouls a piece.

The Panthers took advantage as senior Steve Summers chipped in on his 6th point of the quarter on a second chance bucket from a South offensive rebound that gave them a 9 – 2 advantage.

A Logan Brubaker trey brought the Pats within 4 points, but South ended the quarter that set the tone for the remainder of the contest. Clint Spitler responded with a 3 of his own for TVS and fellow sophomore Ryan Innis nailed a pretty fade away in the lane at the first quarter buzzer that gave the Panthers a 14 – 5 lead.

In the second quarter Buck and Greer returned to the line up and the Patriots made a couple of runs at the Panthers to narrow the gap.

Buck started the quarter with a bucket on the block and Greer contributed 5 points that pulled the Pats with 4 with 3:52 remaining. Again, the Panthers responded and ended the quarter with points off offensive rebounds that resulted in buckets from Spitler and Travis Strebig. Spitler finished the quarter in the same style for TVS as the first quarter when he banged in a jumper off the elbow with 3 seconds remaining. South led 26 to 16 at the break.

In the 3rd quarter the Patriot big men did the damage as Buck and David Barger scored 12 of the Patriots 14 points for the quarter.

Barger scored 8 of his 12 points in the 3rd quarter and his last two buckets of the quarter got the Pats within 6, 36 – 30. The Panthers responded again to the Patriot’s run but this time the damage was lethal. Who else lead the charge but Spitler when he started the 8 point run with 3 pointer and a deuce. Steve Summer landed the knockout punch with another trey and TVS took a 14 point lead into the final stanza.

The Panthers gave the Patriots several opportunities in the 4th quarter to narrow the gap but the Pats couldn’t convert on the offensive end on this night. The Cats from South crashed the boards, crashed the Patriot’s party at The Battleground and won in convincing fashion, 58 – 48. The win earned TVS Coach Tony Augspurger his 300th win as the Panther’s head boy’s varsity coach.

An obviously happy Coach Augspurger commented that he was glad to get the monkey off his back. “My first five years coaching I was 4 – 1 at Tri-Village and my last 5 years I was 0 – 5.”

‘So how big was it to get #300 on this night?’ was the question that I posed to him.

“I don’t remember who I played for my 100th or 200th victory, but I’ll remember this night because it was such a big game for us early in the year. I think Tri-Village is such an excellent team and I think Josh (Coach Sagester) just does a fantastic job. Our kids are friends with their kids and sometimes beating your friends is more important than anything else.”

“I think the tone for a season is set in the first couple of weeks” Augspurger continued, “and we took a real positive step tonight. We have a long way to go obviously, but we took a big step tonight.”

In the post game comments Coach Sagester talked about the runs TVS made at the end of the 2nd and 3rd quarter being the big factors in the game.

“If we get through the first half with only being down 4 or 6 points, I’m telling the coaches on the bench that we can slow the ball down and try to get our offense going for a run in the second half. They go down and score 6 unanswered points and that’s your difference right there” noted Sagester. “I’m thinking that we go in at the half only down 6 with our big man (Buck) not playing the first quarter and I’m feeling pretty good about things.”

“To their credit they hit some big shots” Sagester acknowledging the effort of the South team. “They used their mismatches at certain time and did a good job. They’re a good basketball team.” “When you have three guys like they have that can shoot the basketball like they can, that is a tough match up; especially at the high school level.”

“We have to shoot the basketball better, especially at home” as Sagester was asked about his future match up with a very good Fort Recovery team on the following night. “I attributed our poor shooting last week from having two games on the road but we have to do a better job of scoring at critical times. Our kids fought hard and we’ll give it our best effort tomorrow night.”

Scoring by quarters
TVS..14…26…44…58
TV…..5…16…30…48

TVS
Innis – 10
Spitler – 19
Summers – 15
Stone – 2
Strebig – 2
Flynn – 10
FG% 42.3 (22-52) FT% 60 (9-15)

TV
Barger – 12
Brubaker – 3
Buck – 13
Stutz – 4
Greer – 14
West – 2
Moore – 0

FG% 39.1 (18-46) FT% 67 (10-15)

3 PT Goals
TVS 5 (Innis 2, Spitler 2, Summers)
TV 2 (Brubaker, Greer)