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Malchow: Zebras ‘dragging,’ but Bowers, Reinartz, FT shooting lead to 4th straight win

Val T.

Riley scores 25 to lead North Miami


BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC


Drew Bowers Jonas Kiser


What Rochester boys basketball coach Rob Malchow termed a “basketball bonanza” ended Saturday with a win.

Drew Bowers scored 23 points, and Tanner Reinartz hit four 3-pointers and added 19 points as Rochester pulled away in the final minute to beat North Miami 69-58 at the RHS gym.

Jonas Kiser added nine points, all in the second half.

Rochester made 14 of 17 free throws in the fourth quarter and 22 of 28 for the game. North Miami was 7 for 9 from the line.

North Miami cut what had been a nine-point deficit down to 57-56 on a Ryan Meredith putback with just under three minutes left, but Bowers hit a free throw, and Kiser turned a putback into a 3-point play to get the lead to five.

After a Caden Clingaman hanging layup for North Miami made it 61-58, Rochester closed by hitting eight consecutive free throws in the final 44 seconds.

A key play might have occurred with Owen Prater shooting free throws and Rochester up by three with 57 seconds left. Prater missed both free throws, but after Meredith grabbed the rebound, he tried to make an outlet pass towards the right sideline, but Prater swooped in and stole the ball in the backcourt.

Jake Riley led North Miami with 25 points, and Meredith added 11.

Rochester won their fourth straight game and improved to 11-3. They were playing their fifth game in nine days.

“The basketball bonanza is over,” Rochester coach Rob Malchow said. “We finished 4-1 in that run. That’s good, and considering we were depleted pretty good with injury and illness in the first three, that was a good effort. We were dragging tonight. You could see it. … They were fresh and focused, but credit our guys for finding a way and knocking down enough shots and getting enough stops.”

North Miami lost their third straight game and fell to 6-9. Prater’s steal was critical in halting their comeback effort, but coach Ryan DeMien saw progress.

“Like we’ve talked to our kids about, ball control and valuing that possession, and we just had a letdown right there,” DeMien said. “But overall, I was pleased with how hard our kids played, offensively and defensively. It was just a few little things, and those little things get you there in the end.”

The Zebras also beat North Miami for the eighth straight year. This marked the first nonconference meeting between the teams since February 1987. North Miami left the Three Rivers Conference for the Hoosier North Athletic Conference following the 2023-24 school year.

Neither team led by more than five points in the first half.

Rochester took a 28-25 halftime lead on a Bowers 3-point play with 3.3 seconds left in which he faked a back cut and drew a foul from North Miami’s Lake Musall while hitting an off-balance 12-footer in the lane.

Buckets from Baugher and Bowers to start the second half pushed the lead to seven, but Deardorff’s 4-point play cut the lead down to three. A Musall triple from the right corner would cut it to 35-34, but a Bowers driving layup, a Reinartz free throw and a Bowers pullup in the lane got the lead up to 47-38.

But two Riley free throws and a Meredith trey from the right corner at the third-quarter buzzer trimmed the lead to 49-45.

Rochester again stretched the lead to 57-50 on a Kiser layup, but the redoubtable Warriors fought back again – a Musall free throw, a Deadorff 3-pointer in transition and Meredith’s putback.

But in the fourth quarter, Rochester played a man-to-man defense after a mix of a 2-3 zone and various pressure packages in the first three quarters. The 6-2 Kiser got the assignment on the 5-11 Riley, North Miami’s leading scorer, in the fourth quarter and held him to three points.

“He’s really fast, and he’s really good at driving to the basket,” Kiser said of Riley. “So just retreat and step in like Malchow’s taught us and cutting his drive off, that helped a lot. … Definitely tired, but near the fourth quarter, I found another gear.”

As for his offense, Kiser said he is feeding off the attention that Bowers and Reinartz have received. Kiser scored a career-high 18 points against Manchester Jan. 24.

“I feel like that’s what happened at Manchester too,” Kiser said. “Drew and Tanner got focused on in the scouting report, and then, it left me open to look for my shot.”

North Miami finished with 20 turnovers while Rochester had nine.

“We just didn't have the zip,” Malchow said. “Like I said, with our legs, we were a little dead tonight, and we would get a steal, and then we just weren’t able to get in the lane as fast as we usually do, and I thought that played in. But I walked to them after the game, and I said, ‘Hey, good job. This is like a sectional week – Tuesday, Friday, Saturday. If you’re playing in a sectional, maybe you’re going to be playing against somebody in the same situation.’ This was something we can look back on and maybe get better for it.”

As for North Miami, DeMien said that the player and ball movement offensively was much improved. Defensively, North Miami played man-to-man exclusively, and DeMien commended Clingaman for his defense on Bowers, who was just four days removed from a 48-point game against Caston.

“Defensively, I thought that’s the best man defense that we’ve played, where we’re communicating more and getting in help side,” DeMien said. “I thought Caden came in and played really well against Bowers for us at the end.”

Rochester also won the JV game 39-20. Mitchell Clark led the Zebras with 14 points, Brady Coleman had seven, Parker Casper had six, Owen Lett had four, Parker Meadows had three, Conner Dunfee had three, and Linden Wilburn had two.

Clingaman led the North Miami JV with eight points. Evan Chumbley had four, Jace Hall had three, Hayden Spin had two, Nathan Hiffner had two, and Jaxtin Holmes had one.

Rochester 69, North Miami 58

NORTH MIAMI (58) (6-9)

Kale Deardorff 2 1-1 7, Lake Musall 2 1-2 6, Jake Riley 9 5-6 25, Drew Wright 2 0-0 5, Ryan Meredith 5 0-0 11, Ray Pickett 0 0-0 0, Caden Clingaman 2 0-0 4

TEAM: 22 7-9 58

ROCHESTER (69) (11-3)

Drew Bowers 8 7-9 23, Carson Paulik 0 6-6 6, Owen Prater 2 0-2 4, Tanner Reinartz 5 5-6 19, Bryce Baugher 2 1-2 6, Jonas Kiser 3 3-3 9, Grant Clark 0 0-0 0, Jack Reffett 0 0-0 0, Xavier Vance 1 0-0 2

TEAM: 21 22-28 69

Three-point field goals:

North Miami 7 (Riley 2, Deardorff 2, Wright, Musall, Meredith),

Rochester 5 (Reinartz 4, Baugher)

Total fouls: North Miami 16, Rochester 9

Turnovers: North Miami 20, Rochester 9

Score by quarters

North Miami 14 11 20 13 – 58

Rochester 14 14 21 20 – 69

JV: Rochester 39, North Miami 20


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