Glenwood goes on road for 81-52 victory

SHENANDOAH – A close look at the numbers for the Glenwood boys basketball team a trend appears: 74 points.
In eight of its 11 wins this season, the Rams, who are fifth in Class 3A averaging 70 points per game, have matched or exceeded 74 points.

Glenwood scored 81 Friday.

Predictably, the Rams won, using tough defense and balanced scoring once again to rout Shenandoah 81-52 on the Mustangs home court.
“A lot of it has to do with our tempo,” said Glenwood coach Curt Schulte of his team’s scoring average. “We create a lot with our defense and then we bring in our full (court) and that creates points for us out of that. It’s a strong point for us. We need an up and down game to be successful on both ends.”

The Rams got up and down quickly to open in the game – despite missing seven of their first eight shots. Glenwood opened in the game in their aggressive, 1-2-2 “diamond” zone press and limited Shenandoah to just one first quarter field goal and forced six turnovers in taking a 14-4 lead.

“Our defensive is continuously getting better as the season progresses,” Schulte said. “That’s one thing that, again, is an area we need to continue to get better at because come late February, in post-season, the teams that play the best defense are the ones that advance. So I was very pleased with our defense tonight.”

The Rams lead swelled to as many as 25 in the first half.

A key for Glenwood was their ability to take leading scorer Makonn Anderson out of the Mustangs’ offensive game plan. The 6-foot-4, 230-pound senior was held without a point on 0-of-3 shooting in the first half. Anderson finished with 10 points with all but two coming in the final five minutes of the game.

“I thought Carter (Von Essen) did a great job on him and I thought when Aaron Bertini came in he did a great job on him. We got him in a little foul trouble and they did a heck of job on him defensively getting around not allowing him to get the ball. You can’t score if you don’t have the ball.”

The final score may tell a tale of just another lopsided Ram win but Schulte never took the Mustangs or their 8-4 record lightly.

“It’s always tough coming down here to play,” he said. “Every year we come down, it’s a war. I think our kids set the tone early and maintained that tone in the third quarter and kept the crowd out of the game.”

Christian Stanislav, who came off the bench, and Connor Weis scored a team-high 20 points each. Nate Mohr added 16 and Andrew Blum 12.

“Every night somebody different steps up,” Schulte said. “That’s key to when teams scout us. They can’t play certain defenses on us because we have four or five or six different guys leading us every night. We just have to continue to maintain that balance going into February.”

Jake Cevern led Shenandoah with 20 points.
 

The Opinion-Tribune

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