Smith ‘proud’ of effort, but No. 2 Oak Hill eliminates Zebras in sectional final

Spence, Coleman score 11 each to lead Rochester

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

The Rochester boys basketball team lost to Oak Hill 75-54 in the Class 2A, Sectional 38 final at Manchester Saturday to finish 10-13. Front, from left – Alex Chapman, Mitchell Clark, Ashton Musselman, Brady Coleman, Parker Casper, Conner Dunfee. Middle – coach Luke Smith, Jonas Kiser, Grant Clark, Liam Spence, Jack Reffett, Carson Paulik, Aiden Wilson, JV coach Sean Kelly. Back – Grayson Miller, Taylor Howard, Owen Lett, Van Kiser, Linden Wilburn.

NORTH MANCHESTER — Liam Spence and Brady Coleman scored 11 points each, but the Rochester boys basketball team could not overcome No. 2 Oak Hill’s nine first-half 3-pointers in a 75-54 loss in the Class 2A, Sectional 38 final at Manchester Saturday.

Jonas Kiser added nine points, Carson Paulik had eight, and Jack Reffett had seven for the Zebras, who finished 10-13.

“I’m so proud of my guys,” Rochester coach Luke Smith said. “The fight you saw in my crew tonight … If they don’t come out and shoot the living lights out of it to start this ballgame, it might have been more of a battle. I think we lost the second half by a point (32-31).”

Jace Tonagel hit five 3-pointers and scored a game-high 31 points for Oak Hill. Freshman point guard Will Tonagel added 13, and Kevaunte Simmons came off the bench to score 12.

The Golden Eagles improved to 24-1 and earned a regional matchup with Benton Central at 4 p.m. this Saturday at Frankfort.

Rochester scored the game’s first basket on Spence’s 12-footer in the lane, but Oak Hill followed with an 18-2 run that included three 3-pointers from Jace Tonagel, and the Zebras never led again.

Jace Tonagel had as many points in the first half as the entire Rochester team (23) as Oak Hill built a 20-point halftime lead.

Oak Hill led 24-10 after one quarter, and they stuck four more treys in the second quarter. When Will Tonagel buried a 3 from the left corner to cap a 10-0 run with 4:02 left in the half, the margin was 40-17.

“It was big,” Oak Hill coach Kevin Renbarger said of the first-half shooting. “We anticipated them playing zone. You know, to be able to shoot a team out of the zone, obviously it’s huge. I was not really overly thrilled with the way that we were playing on the other end of the floor. A lot of times, your defense carries you while your offense gets going, but tonight, I think it was the other way around. We were able to shoot them out of their zone, and we were able to get enough points to get comfortable and get a lead.”

Smith called timeout. He ordered the Zebras to switch from the zone defense they had been playing to a man-to-man.

“We had to go ‘50,’” Smith said, referring to his term for a man-to-man. “You tip your cap. You move on.” 

And over the next nine minutes, Rochester outscored Oak Hill 16-9. That part included putbacks from Mitchell Clark and Kiser, a Grant Clark 15-footer, a Kiser pullup 3 in transition, a Spence fade in the lane, a contested 3 from the left corner from Paulik off a Grant Clark skip pass and two Mitchell Clark free throws.

Smith spoke of how easy it would be to get “demoralized” against Oak Hill, who ranks in the top 20 in the state in both offensive and defensive scoring average and who came in winning games by an average margin of 27 points per game.

As it turned out, it marked the first time all season Rochester scored 50 or more points and lost. Oak Hill, who runs a switching man-to-man defense, had allowed 50 or more points just five times prior to Saturday.

“The ball moved,” Smith said. “The guys cut hard. That’s all we talked about in film this morning is how you get your offense initiated against a team that switches everything. Unfortunately, with us trying to switch everything and trying to get that into place, we see it enough in practice (that) we know how where the weak spots are. … They got a couple of deep posts for Liam early in the game to get us going.

“But that’s a really good basketball team. They’re number two in the state for a reason. And for our guys to compete like they did and lose by 20 … They were not happy that we were scoring the ball.”

Jace Tonagel then hit a 3 from the right wing behind a flare screen, and Oak Hill went on another 13-4 run that included a backcourt steal and floater from Simmons and a Simmons putback in transition. 

A Kiser transition banker made it 59-37, but in a blink, Jayden Younce quickly inbounded to Jace Tonagel, who feathered a long hit-ahead pass to Simmons, who scored as Kiser fouled him. 

Simmons completed the 3-point play to give Oak Hill their biggest lead at 25. 

Smith spoke of “culture” afterwards. He hopes that outscoring Oak Hill 37-35 over the last 20 minutes will inspire them to get in the gym in the offseason.

“There are a lot of tears, a lot of love in that locker room,” Smith said. “A culture that I’ve preached all year long. It really came to fruition tonight.”

Kiser scored 26 points in a semifinal win over Wabash Friday, but he did not score in this game until he dropped in a lefty half-hook in the lane with 6:41 left in the half. But the Zebras were still down 30-15.

Kiser is 6-4, and Oak Hill has no starter taller than 6-2 and three starters under 6-0.

Renbarger, who coached Oak Hill to a state championship in 2018, talked about how close his team is afterwards and how it helped them overcome its “limitations.” Oak Hill also won three sectional games in five days without starting guard R.J. Shugart, who averages 12 points per game. Shugart was out all week after undergoing an appendectomy.

That closeness helped them pull through. Renbarger called his team an “army of one.”

“That was a key obviously,” Renbarger said of stopping Kiser. “With all of them, we wanted to keep them out of the middle of the paint. We just wanted to try to force tough 3s, and we’ve been fortunate enough over the course of the basketball season to put heavy ball pressure on people and keep them out of what they’re trying to do.

“By and large, we did that tonight. As I said, I feel like we got lost a couple of times. When he caught the ball at the elbow, we were determined not to allow an isolation to occur and have him go up against our entire defense.”

Oak Hill 75, Rochester 54

ROCHESTER (54) (10-13)

Carson Paulik 2 2-2 8, Brady Coleman 5 0-0 11, Liam Spence 4 3-4 11, Jack Reffett 2 2-2 7, Jonas Kiser 4 0-0 9, Mitchell Clark 1 2-2 4, Ashton Musselman 0 0-0 0, Parker Casper 0 0-0 0, Aiden Wilson 0 0-0 0, Alex Chapman 0 0-0 0, Conner Dunfee 0 0-0 0, Grant Clark 2 0-0 4

TEAM: 20 9-10 54

OAK HILL (75) (24-1)

Will Tonagel 4 2-2 13, Luke Elzinga 1 0-0 2, Landon Watts 1 0-0 2, Jayden Younce 2 0-0 6, Jace Tonagel 11 4-5 31, Beckham Lamb 0 0-0 0, Solomon Boswell 0 2-2 2, Kevaunte Simmons 4 4-5 12, Landon Cruzan 3 0-0 7, Corbin Dailey 0 0-0 0, Josh Clark 0 0-0 0

TEAM: 26 12-14 75

Three-point field goals:

Rochester 5 (Paulik 2, Reffett, Kiser, Coleman),

Oak Hill 11 (J. Tonagel 5, W. Tonagel 3, Younce 2, Cruzan)

Total fouls: Rochester 16, Oak Hill 14

Turnovers: Rochester 16, Oak Hill 15

Score by quarters

Rochester 10 13 19 12 – 54

Oak Hill 24 19 21 11 – 75