Foul trouble, speed kills Boone Grove's season in 64-50 regional semifinal loss to Westview

A USA-365.com Special Report By Mark Smith
3-12-2006

Saturday, 3-11-2006 - 2A North Judson Regional Semifinal

WESTVIEW (64)  Brad Stutzman 2-6-10, Justin Yoder 4-6-16, Taylor Aspy 3-9-15, Chase Yoder  4-0-8, Adam Christner 1-7-9, Austin Miller 1-0-3, Kenny White  1-0-3.  TOTALS 16 (28-35) 64.

BOONE GROVE (50)  David Mastey 3-0-6, Jake Pivarnik 5-0-14, Bryce Palleson 2-1-5, John Shurr 2-1-5, Joe Johnson 2-2-7, Matt Pierce 4-0-9, David Block 1-2-4, Nick DiMarco 0-0-0, Zak Ursitti 0-0-0.  TOTALS: 19 (6-11) 50.

FREE THROWS:  WESTVIEW (28-35, 80.0%) Justin Yoder 6-8, Stutzman 6-6, Aspy 9-12, Christner 7-10; BOONE GROVE (6-11, 54.5%) Palleson 1-2, Shurr 1-2, Johnson 2-4, Block 2-3.

ASSISTS:  WESTVIEW (9)  Adam Christner 6, Justin Yoder 2, Aspy, 0 ;  BOONE (6) Pivarnik 3, Johnson 2, Shurr.

STEALS:  WESTVIEW (6) Justin Yoder 2, Adam Christner 2, Chase Yoder;  BOONE (6) Mastey 2, Palleson, Shurr.

FOULED OUT:  BOONE (2) Will Mitchell (4th Q) 5:42 left; Jake Pivarnik (4th Q) 00:41 left.

NORTH JUDSON (3-11-2006)  "Speed kills," said Boone Grove coach Matt McKay.

"It's still a game of skill," said Westview coach Rob Yoder.

When you get right down to it, in Westview's come-from-behind 64-50 win over Boone Grove in the North Judson Class 2A Regional semifinals Saturday, the Warriors capitalized on the weakness Boone Grove had going into the 2006 season.  Boone didn't have a lot of guards and no true point guard.  Westview was all guards and they have a point guard who will make a name for himself.

Boone Grove led 29-18 with 6:30 left in the third quarter but Will Mitchell and Bryce Palleson both picked up fouls in the first two minutes of the third quarter and once the game went Westview's way, the Warriors had the 'good hands' people.

Westview, which was coming off consecutive upsets of defending regional champ John Glenn and 2004 sate champ Jimtown, trailed 29-18 and looked bad doing it before they zipped to life with a 12-0 run.  Five different players scored for the Warriors.  Keyed by 5-foot-7 freshman Adam Christner, a gifted high speed dribbler, Westview rattled the taller Boone players, scoring on quick drives and rushing the favored team into bad shots.

"We were a little tense," said Yoder of the first half.  "A few things (calls) didn't go our way.  Not to say it was one-sided or anything.  But we were 1-for-7 from 3s, which we're usually good at.  In the second half we hit some shots."

"I thought the biggest thing was, we did a much better job of spreading the floor," added Yoder.  "I think we have a little bit of skill.  The thing is, if you have five skilled players against five big guys guarding them in a five foot area, you're not going to get a lot done.  Us spreading the floor was a key."

Boone (18-6), which had played five Class 4A schools had multiple problems.  The Wolves settled for long range jumpers in the first half when they should have taken advantage of their height and size edge inside.  They should have led by 15-20 at the half.  Boone's ball-handlers also made some unforced errors and lost confidence against what was essentially a five-guard offense for Westview.

"A lot of our 3s came after we fell behind," said McKay.  "But we took some 3s in the first half that we really didn't want to take.  We wanted to run time off the clock (with the 29-18 lead).  But we got some fouls and once they got started, we couldn't stop them."

It was not an odd decision to remove Mitchell and Palleson from the game with three fouls each in a game Boone was leading.  But it contributed to Boone's demise as Boone made six turnovers in a 20-9 Westview third quarter.

"We tried to shuffle them in and out," Mckay said of the foul situation.  "But neither one of them ever got back into the flow of the game."

Westview, which has no player taller than 6-foot-3, operated an open offense without a center.  They tried a lot of back door plays where a ballhandler running laterally would try to zip a pass to a player cutting to the basket.  Once the game was even, Westview's superior ball-handlers were able to control the pace of the game by maintaining possession of the ball and drawing fouls.  Westview sank 28 of 35 from the foul line, including 25 of 30 in the second half.  Boone didn't like some of the calls and the speedy Westview dribblers  clearly had a step on the Boone defenders, especially those being careful due to foul trouble.

Boone's last lead was 31-30 with 2:40 left in the third quarter before a 6-0 run put Westview ahead 36-31 in the final minute of the third quarter.  Jake Pivarnik, who struggled against the quicker Westview defenders, sank two three-point goals to rally the 500 Boone fans in the crowd at the old North Judson gym.  But 5-foot-8 junior Austin Miller sank three-point shots off feeds from Christner and a 45-38 lead was forged with 6:30 to go.

When Mitchell was called for his fifth foul on a very questionable offensive foul with 5:42 left, Westview led 49-41 and Boone never recovered.

"We thought we were getting back into it," said McKay, who complained bitterly about the call along the baseline near the Boone bench.  "We needed that call and we didn't get it. We could never quite get back into the game after that."

Boone Grove needed a tightly called game and they didn't get it.  Boone lost the ball several times on slaps by the quick handed Warriors.  The Wolves got the best of some debatable calls in the first half, but the second half was a parade of Warriors to the line.  Then again,  the quicker team usually gets the most calls.

"That's true," said McKay.  "They really go at you hard and you (the referees) can't see everything.  If they don't see a couple or five fouls, that can turn the game."

Yoder preached that small and skilled is better than big and strong, something Westview apparently has to live with due to the smallish boys they get out for basketball in the heart of Amish country east of Elkhart.

"Everybody says, "Boy, you're small," said Yoder, dipping into comedy.  "The good thing is, we don't have to look at the program to see if  the other team is bigger than we are because everyone's bigger than we are.  We can avoid that.  We list Taylor as a forward but that's just to intimidate the opposition."

Yoder clearly preaches turning a negative into a positive.  If you filter through his 'aw shucks' routine, what he does is make his boys fundamentally sound and skilled.

"We try to be good on the perimeter," he said.  "Hand on the nose on the shooter.  To be really tough digging in the post.  That's crucial for our defense.  We have to give help and we have to recover quickly.  It's still a game of skill.  Everybody looks at the roster and looks at size and says who should beat who."

Boone Grove continues to be the undiscovered country.  No northwest Indiana teams have won as many sectional titles (seven) in the class sports era, but it hurts to see them lose at the regional level every year.

"I think most of the coaches in NW Indiana, maybe most of the coaches in the state would change places with me," McKay said of his eight sectionals and no regional titles.  "We lose here every year, but we're here every year and that says a lot."

REGIONAL NOTES:  It was a tough day for the metropolitan Valparaiso area as 4A Valpo, 2A Boone Grove and 1A Hebron all lost in regional play.  Clark, Andrean and East Chicago also lost, leaving only 1A miracle team (they lost 56 games in a row three years ago) Oregon-Davis as the only NW Indiana team in the semistate round of the playoffs.

This is the first year in the class sports era that no Lake, Porter or LaPorte county team reached the semistate in either boys or girls basketball.

Coach Rob Yoder is not related to senior Chase Yoder or sophomore Justin Yoder, as odd as that may seem in a small area like rural LaGrange County.

"It's just a trashy name in our area," he joked.  "Three years ago, there were three Yoders on the Westview squad. One year, there were actually five Yoders.  The only explanation is that Amish religious areas are very closed societies and the same family names keep repeating much more so than in secular communities.  Yoder is the Smith of Amish country. 

"I don't know what it means," coach Yoder said.  "Maybe is means 'short'.   

Westview's school district includes a large Amish area and Amish people are typically not very tall.  Westview's success (they were 1999 and 2000 Class 2A state champs) must be considered with the fact that many fundamentalist Amish boys are not allowed to play basketball because of their religion, which does not approve of that recreation.  A significant percentage of Amish boys quit school after eighth grade for religious reasons.

People who think of Porter County as being country clearly have never been to LaGrange County, Indiana where 37% of the population is Amish.  They, by religious doctrine, do not use cars, electricity and other modern conveniences and they shun secular ways.  The county has the third largest Amish community in the nation, but some Amish in the LaGrange county, which means 'the farm' in French, has some who do not 100% adhere to all Amish customs and do send their children to public school.  You could see a couple of teens in the traditional Amish dress of overalls for boys and long shoe length white dresses for girls at Saturday's game.

The crowd at North Judson was about 3,000 and many came back Saturday night to see Westview win the 2A regional title with a 67-56 win over No. 10 Rochester.

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Revised: March 16, 2006 .