Caston’s Mollenkopf brothers combine for 30, but strong 2nd quarter helps Triton wrap up Hoosier North title share

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Logan Mollenkopf

FULTON — Caston boys basketball coach Carl Davis spoke of how his team’s February schedule helps prepare it for the postseason on March.

Triton is one of those teams that pops up in February on Caston’s schedule every year, and they showed off their Hoosier North supremacy again Saturday in a 46-41 win over the host Comets.

Gage Riffle scored 14 points, and Jayden Overmyer added 13, all in the second half, for Triton. 

Logan Mollenkopf scored 20 points to lead Caston, and Gavin Mollenkopf had 10, including eight in the fourth quarter. Lane Hook had eight.

Triton improved to 13-3 overall and 7-0 in the Hoosier North. They have clinched a share of the Hoosier North title and can clinch it outright with a win at North Miami Friday.

Caston lost to Triton for the fourth straight year and fell to 12-5, 3-1. Caston will need Triton to lose to North Miami and win their final four conference games to get their own conference share. North Miami and Winamac also hope to pounce if Triton stumbles.

Triton is a defending regional champion. Triton has had only two losing seasons in coach Jason Groves’ 21 seasons. During that time, they have also won 10 sectionals, five regionals, three semistates and a state title in 2008.

“Just tough man-to-man defense, and they do a really good job of being physical and using their lower body and showing their hands while they’re doing it,” Davis said of Triton’s defense. “And they’re just a really fundamentally sound defensive group, and the help is always there, and they force the kickouts, and they make you hit shots. They just don’t beat themselves. They keep the ball in front and make you shoot with somebody in front of them. It sounds simple, but it’s a simple game.”

This Triton team does not have a starter taller than 6-0, but they rank No. 7 in defensive scoring average this year after ranking No. 1 last year. They held Caston to one field goal in the second quarter and went on a 20-4 run over an 11-and-a-half-minute span in the first half to build an 11-point lead.

They led 21-12 at halftime and hung on after Caston cut the lead to four on three occasions in the second half, the last time at 35-31 on a Logan Mollenkopf 3-pointer from the right corner that spun around the rim, hit the backboard and somehow dropped with 3:39 left.

Davis called timeout to set up the press, but Brady Wood threw over the top of the press to Riffle, who put in a layup.

After a Caston turnover, Triton’s Overmyer executed a fake dribble handoff and cut back to the baseline for an easy layup.

Hook hit two free throws, but Overmyer answered with a 3-point play. The lead was back to nine.

Groves spoke of the difficulty of trying to guard both Logan Mollenkopf and Hook. Both can score from the post and can hit from the outside. The 5-11 Landon Patrick had the defensive assignment on the 6-2 Logan Mollenkopf with Overmyer and Isaac Quintana trying to corral Hook.

“They’re just skilled,” Groves said. “They can shoot from out. They can drive. They can post up. So we put Landon on Mollenkopf, which he was probably a little undersized, and he took advantage of in the second half, but overall, I thought our guys did a really nice job on him. We were just trying to just stay with those two and help off and double them in the post when they got it in the post.”

Caston was coming off a 66-11 win over North White Feb. 5, and they got off to a 6-1 lead in this game thanks to a Logan Mollenkopf 3 and a midrange jumper.

Still, Davis sees growth in his team. The Comets bounced back to win three straight games against sectional rivals Pioneer, Tri-County and North White after consecutive last-second losses by identical 51-50 scores to West Central and Rochester.

“They keep getting better every week,” Davis said. “I thought they had a really good week of practice leading into this. And they did some really good things tonight and took some things away that we wanted to take away. I think when you look at how they responded in the third quarter despite some of those turnovers and still being able to cut into that lead a little bit, I thought that was a big step of maturity for them.

“You could just hear it with the talk in the locker room after. You can tell that this is a team that they’re really engaged, and they understand we’ve got to worry about what’s important now, and we’ve got to learn from this one and move on to prepare for another conference opponent (North Judson) next week.”

Triton also won the JV game 49-28. Brodie Howard led Caston with eight points, Brodie Howard had five, Tyler Remley had four, Christian Solomon had three, and Kaemen Lee, Owen Chapman, Tucker Woolever and Mack Mappin scored two each.

Triton 46, Caston 41

TRITON (46) (13-3, 7-0)

Landon Patrick 0 3-4 3, Julian Swanson 1 1-4 3, Gage Riffle 5 2-3 14, Brady Wood 3 0-0 7, Jayden Overmyer 6 1-1 13, Jamison Swanson 2 0-0 6, Isaac Quintana 0 0-0 0, Colton Large 0 0-0 0

TEAM: 17 7-12 46

CASTON (41) (12-5, 3-1)

Reed Sommers 0 2-2 2, Carson Harness 0 1-2 1, Logan Mollenkopf 8 2-5 20, Gavin Mollenkopf 4 0-0 10, Lane Hook 2 2-2 8, Owen Chapman 0 0-0 0, Brodie Howard 0 0-0 0

TEAM: 14 7-11 41

Three-point field goals:

Triton 5 (Riffle 2, Jamison Swanson 2, Wood),

Caston 6 (L. Mollenkopf 2, G. Mollenkopf 2, Hook 2)

Total fouls: Triton 18, Caston 18

Turnovers: Triton 10, Caston 17

Score by quarters

Triton 6 15 7 18 – 46

Caston 8 4 9 20 – 41