‘Drew felt it tonight:’ Bowers scores 48, helps Rochester beat Caston

Appears to be most points for Zebra player since 1989

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Drew Bowers

FULTON — Rochester boys basketball senior point guard Drew Bowers said playing with Tanner Reinartz and Owen Prater is beneficial because opponents cannot concentrate their defensive energy just on him.

“You’ve got to pick your poison, I guess,” Bowers said.

Bowers delivered poison by the barrelful to host Caston Tuesday, scoring every which way and finishing with 48 points in a 76-56 Zebra win.

Bowers came in averaging 13.3 points per game. His previous career high was 23, which he accomplished twice – once last year and once this year and both against Logansport.

He surpassed that with 25 in the first half and then added 13 more in the third quarter before a 10-point flurry in the fourth.

Tanner Reinartz added 15 for Rochester, who improved to 9-3. Logan Mollenkopf had 18, and Lane Hook added 15 for Caston, who fell to 5-8.

Rochester beat Caston for the third straight year.

“Drew went a little above and beyond,” Rochester coach Rob Malchow said. “It was just a situation where Drew is a senior. He’s smart. He’s quick. He took advantage of their underclassmen a little bit. I mean, those guys are going to be good in another year or two or by the end of this season. … But when you’ve got a young team like that, that can be tough if the seniors play well, and Drew felt it tonight.”

Rochester had committed 35 turnovers combined in its previous two games but had only seven in this game. Meanwhile, Caston had 23 turnovers.

“It’s been a point of emphasis,” Malchow said of cutting down the turnovers. “I’ve been frustrated. … It’s just too many. I just told the guys if they want to have a chance to win a championship, if they want to have good things happen to their season, taking care of the ball is huge.”

Bowers said later he kept a count in his head and did not need to be told how many points he had.

“I felt good,” Bowers said. “I always was the open guy, I feel like. They just left me open, and I could drive past them, so I attacked and I got 48.”

The school record for points in a game is 97, which Guy Barr set against Bremen in the peach basket era of 1908.

The IHSAA keeps a publicly available database of every 50-point game on its website. According to the website, in addition to Barr’s game, Steve Ruckman had games of 52 and 50 against Peru and Northfield, respectively, in January 1989.

Bowers’ output Tuesday would appear to be the most by a Rochester player since then.

Jonas Kiser penetrated, broke down the Caston defense and fed Bowers for a layup to make it 66-45 on the first possession of the fourth quarter. That got him to 40, the first Rochester player to reach that mark since Bruce Grimm Jr. scored 40 in the 2009 Class 3A state championship game loss to Princeton in double overtime.

Bowers pounced on a sloppy skip pass from Carson Harness that went over Mollenkopf’s head and went in for an uncontested layup.

He had 42.

He cut weak side and took a pass from Grant Clark for a layup to make it 72-50. That got him to 44.

Bryce Baugher stepped in front of a bounce pass for a steal, and he fed Bowers in a one-on-one transition against Reed Sommers. Bowers came to a jump stop as Sommers flew underneath the cylinder. Bowers laid it in for 46.

A steal and layup in transition got him to 48 with 1:40 left. He was fouled on the play but missed the free throw, but Prater rebounded and passed out to Bowers for a 10-foot banker, which he missed.

Bowers also had a shot for 50 in the final minute, but he missed a 17-footer long from the left wing. Tucker Woolever rebounded for Caston, and Bowers fouled out with 40.7 seconds left trying to stop his dribble as he worked upcourt.

“We were just screening and trying to get them to switch and then attack mismatches the whole time,” Bowers said. “So that was our game plan.”

Do you feel like you had a mismatch all the time?

“Yeah,” Bowers said. “Those guys are young, so they don’t really have much experience, so we just took advantage of that.”

It marked the first time in his career he fouled out.

“He’s so quick, and as well as he shoots it – when you’re shooting over 50 percent from 3 – you want to close out on him and take it away, he’s going to go right by you,” Caston coach Carl Davis said of Bowers. “And if you have secondary help there, he’s really good at pulling up. If you don’t have secondary help there, he’s really good at getting all the way to the rim and finishing even against the taller guys in the paint. So he can score at all three levels, which makes it really tough.

“But honestly, one of the biggest things is there’s all kinds of strategies – running two at him. You can try to do all kinds of things, but … when other guys are hitting 3s, it’s really hard to help off those guys, and that’s when you get yourself in a bind is when you can’t help off, and then if you help off a guy inside, those guys are strong and they’re going to finish. So they present you with a ton of challenges.”

Bowers hit three of Rochester’s six treys in the first quarter – including one with two seconds left – as they jumped out to a 26-15 lead.

Rochester led by as many as 15 in the second quarter, but Caston crawled back within 39-32 thanks to four 3-pointers of their own – two by Mollenkopf and one each from Hook and Drew McGrew – a Hook layup off a Mollenkopf assist against Rochester’s halfcourt trap, a 15-footer from Carson Harness after a smooth pass fake and a Parker Zimpleman free throw.

But Bowers struck again, making two free throws and then sinking a 25-footer at the buzzer for another 3 to get the lead to 12.

“I thought our run to cut it to seven there in the second quarter, and I think we had a possession and a good look at the basket to cut it to five there towards the end of that first half,” Davis said. “We missed it, and they go on a 5-0 run to end the first half. I thought that was a killer for us. I thought we did a good job of clawing our way back, but our kids battled all night. They kept fighting. I thought our body language was a lot better tonight. That’s something we’ve been emphasizing, and I thought our kids responded in that respect tonight.”

Rochester then went on a 20-5 run to start the second half. Bowers capped the run with another 3 to make it 64-37.

Rochester 76, Caston 56

ROCHESTER (76) (9-3)

Drew Bowers 20 3-5 48, Bryce Baugher 3 0-2 7, Tanner Reinartz 6 0-0 15, Jonas Kiser 0 0-2 0, Jack Reffett 1 0-0 3, Owen Prater 0 0-0 0, Brady Coleman 0 0-0 0, Conner Dunfee 0 0-0 0, Grant Clark 1 1-2 3, Xavier Vance 0 0-0 0

TEAM: 31 4-11 76

CASTON (56) (5-8)

Drew McGrew 1 0-0 3, Reed Sommers 1 0-0 2, Logan Mollenkopf 6 3-4 18, Gavin Mollenkopf 2 2-4 6, Lane Hook 6 1-2 15, Owen Chapman 0 0-0 0, London Herd 0 2-2 2, Jan Aguilar-Mendez 0 0-0 0, Carson Harness 3 1-1 8, Gage Thomas 0 0-0 0, Tucker Woolever 0 1-2 1, Parker Zimpleman 0 1-2 1

TEAM: 19 11-17 56

Three-point field goals:

Rochester 10 (Bowers 5, Reinartz 3, Baugher, Reffett),

Caston 7 (L. Mollenkopf 3, Hook 2, Harness, McGrew)

Total fouls: Rochester 20, Caston 10

Fouled out: Bowers (RHS), :40.7, fourth

Turnovers: Rochester 7, Caston 23

Score by quarters

Rochester 26 18 20 12 – 76

Caston 15 17 11 13 – 56

JV: Rochester 41, Caston 35