B. Hines scores 16, Malchow adds 15 for Warriors

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

WINAMAC — Drew Bowers scored 13 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter to lead three Rochester boys basketball players in double figures, and the Zebra defense held host Winamac scoreless for a 6:40 span of the second half in a 55-44 win Friday.

Owen Prater added 13 points, and Tanner Reinartz had 10 points and a team-high nine rebounds for Rochester, who improved to 2-1.

Brendan Hines scored 16 for Winamac (1-2), and Will Malchow had 15 points and six rebounds.

Rochester has not lost to Winamac since Nov. 30, 2018, and they are 5-1 in their last six games at Winamac’s gym, starting with their 2020 sectional triumph there.

Rochester won despite committing 19 turnovers, including eight in the fourth quarter. Winamac had 18 turnovers.

Rochester also held Winamac junior guard-wing Justin Potthoff scoreless six days after Potthoff scored a career-high 17 points in Winamac’s previous game against North Newton.

“Every guy that played tonight contributed either significantly or in some way positive,” Rochester coach Rob Malchow said. “But every guy that played tonight, we’re going to be looking at film and breaking down what we got to get better at because we made some tough choices at times. But effort was not an issue.”

Winamac coach Mike Springer said Rochester’s pressure defenses had a cumulative effect.

“What probably hurt us more was their pressing throughout the game,” Springer said. “Their trapping probably took more of a physical toll on us than their bumping and banging. We ran out of gas. They ran us out of gas. But I think we handled the physicality of it for the most part. There were times guys were diving on the floor and knocked to the floor … but the physicality, yeah, but the constant pressure probably played a toll on us more than just the bumping and the banging.”

Jonas Kiser hit Prater for a baby jumper in the lane with two seconds left in the third quarter, and that put Rochester ahead for good at 37-36.

Prater scored again on a putback of a Kiser miss on the first possession to bump the lead to three.

Then, Bowers took aim at the basket.

Winamac was late on a switch, and Bowers drilled a 3 off the dribble. Hines missed a 3, Reinartz rebounded and passed downcourt to Bowers, who had leaked out. Hines fouled him on his layup attempt with Bowers hitting the floor hard on the way down.

Bowers split a pair of free throws.

Then after a Winamac turnover, Bowers used a dribble handoff from Xavier Vance and hit a 23-footer for 3 to push the lead to 10.

Three possessions later, after Kiser faked a pass into Xavier Vance in the post, he then kicked to the top of the key to Bowers, who drilled another 3 with 3:48 left to get the lead to 49-36.

Bowers finished with four 3-pointers. He outscored the entire Winamac team 13-8 in the fourth quarter.

“I was just trying to be aggressive because the whole game, we weren’t clicking on offense, and I was just like trying to take over and score,” Bowers said.

An Ethan Burgess 3-point play and a Hines trey from the right wing got Winamac back within 49-42 with 2:06 left, but Reinartz and Bowers combined to hit six of eight free throws in the final 1:24.

He also had the defensive assignment on Brendan Hines, Winamac’s only senior starter.

“I thought Drew did a really good job in the fourth quarter,” coach Malchow said. “Brendan got loose a few times because we were trying to close out, and what Brendan has done better than he’s done his whole career is go to the bucket. And that’s something he didn’t do last year. He was a shooter, and that was it, and when he did drive, he only took a dribble or two and kicked and got back outside. Tonight – and that’s what we talked about at halftime – was Drew playing him straight up. Other than when we went to our pressure packages and he got loose a couple times, Drew did a really good job.”

Reinartz and Will Malchow were assessed offsetting dead ball technical fouls after a brief verbal altercation with 2:53 left.

Will Malchow is Rob Malchow’s nephew.

The win capped off a week of “real hard” practice following a 10-point home loss to Tippecanoe Valley, according to Bowers.

“Any minor mistakes, we were running for,” Bowers said. “We were just getting after it and trying to get better.”

Winamac hit four treys in the first quarter and led 14-5 at one point. Malchow had one of the 3s, and he also scored on a fast break, a driving layup and a short finger roll as the lead stayed at 18-11 after one quarter.

But Rochester opened the second quarter on a 10-2 run with Prater scoring three straight buckets at one point – on a drop-off pass from Kiser after Kiser chased down his own missed free throw, on a strong driving finish from the high post against Winamac’s 2-3 zone and on a driving layup from the left baseline – to give Rochester a 21-20 lead.

Hines knocked down a 3, but Zebra reserve Jack Reffett hit treys on consecutive possessions, and Rochester led 27-23.

A Malchow transition layup cut the lead to two at halftime.

Winamac went on a 9-0 run in the third quarter that included a Jaybin Hines triple, driving layups from Brendan Hines and Malchow, and a half-hook in the paint from Ethan Burgess. That put Winamac back up 34-30.

Reinartz retaliated. First he drove for a power layup. Then he split a pair of free throws. Then he hit a pullup 15-footer from just off the right baseline to give Rochester a 35-34 lead.

Then the Hines brothers hooked up – Jaybin to a cutting Brendan – and Winamac was back ahead.

“I told the kids this, and I believe this: We played a good game,” Springer said. “There were some things we got to get better at. But there was nothing in that game that we can’t fix to come out with a ‘W.’”

Game notes

Reffett’s nine points were a season high and one off a career high. He scored 10 in a game against North White last year.
Winamac won the JV game 43-29 behind Sean Stark’s 18 points. Kannon Hoover had 10, Evan Burgess had six, Hunter Haschel had five, and Hutch Martin had four.

Mitchell Clark scored 15 to lead the Rochester JV. Carlos Plascencia had five, Trenton Meadows had four, Parker Casper had three, and Aiden Wilson had two.

The Tippecanoe Valley-Rochester freshman team game scheduled for Wednesday has been canceled due to Valley’s lack of numbers.

Rochester 55, Winamac 44

ROCHESTER (55) (2-1)

Drew Bowers 4 4-6 16, Owen Prater 6 1-1 13, Bryce Baugher 1 0-0 3, Jonas Kiser 0 1-2 1, Tanner Reinartz 3 4-7 10, Carson Paulik 1 0-0 3, Grant Clark 0 0-0 0, Jack Reffett 3 0-0 9, Xavier Vance 0 0-0 0

TEAM: 18 10-16 55

WINAMAC (44) (1-2)

Brendan Hines 6 0-0 16, Justin Potthoff 0 0-2 0, Jaybin Hines 2 0-0 6, Ethan Burgess 2 1-1 5, Will Malchow 7 0-2 15, Alex Hague 1 0-0 2, Brayden Mathias 0 0-0 0

TEAM: 18 1-5 44

Three-point field goals:

Rochester 9 (Bowers 4, Reffett 3, Baugher, Paulik),

Winamac 7 (B. Hines 4, J. Hines 2, Malchow)

Total fouls: Rochester 14, Winamac 18

Technical fouls: Reinartz (RHS), 2:53, fourth; Malchow (WIN), 2:53, fourth

Fouled out: Prater (RHS), :36.1, fourth

Turnovers: Rochester 19, Winamac 18

Score by quarters

Rochester 11 16 10 18 – 55

Winamac 18 7 11 8 – 44

JV: Winamac 43, Rochester 29