COOL SUMMERS...is how to describe the clutch shooting of Steve Summer as scored 30 points and rained six threes on Miami East.

Story by Bob Moore
January 29, 2008 – WEST ALEXANDRIA
The Twin Valley South Panthers boys basketball team took a huge step in winning an outright conference title by defeating the Miami East Vikings, 62-51. Steve Summers lead the way for TVS with 30 points and dropped 6 treys on the Vikings that sank their hopes of a share of the conference championship.

Summers busted three 3’s on the Vikings in the first quarter and scored 13 points to lead the Panthers to a 5 point margin. TVS lead as much as 10 points with less than 2 minutes to go but Miami East’s Richie Vega canned a 3 at the Buzzer that made the score 20 – 15 after one.

Coach Allen Mack commented after the game that after Vega hit the 3 at the buzzer that maybe the Vikings weathered the storm, but the forecast did not improve in the second quarter.

Vega scored the teams’ only field goal in the 2nd quarter while Dan Hickman added two free throws.

South scored 12 points in quarter, led by bookend Clint Spitler treys to begin and end the quarter.

“A slow start” noted Mack in his post game comments. “It was the same thing that caused us trouble at Arcanum, especially in the 2nd quarter with only 4 points. We had troubles on both ends of the court tonight, but you have to hand it to South. They pulled a big win on their home court.”

South did a great job on defense by holding Hickman, who averaged 22.8 points over his last 6 games and Logan Carey who averaged 14.5 games in the same stretch to 14 and 6 points respectively.

TVS coach Tony Augspurger was quick to give his team and individual players the praise on the defense played against the Viking’s leading scorers.

“I thought Austin (Schmidt) did an outstanding job against Hickman. Austin worked so hard on Hickman that he could not get easy looks for the whole time he was guarding him. Clint did a great job on Carey” Augspurger continued. “Carey is a nice player and he only got 6 points tonight. Stopping their transition game and getting back on defense was one of our keys tonight because those two are so good getting the ball quickly to the other end of the floor for easy baskets.”

South started the 3rd quarter with another 3 from Summers and Ryan Innis bombed a 3 within two steps of the Panther’s bench to force a timeout from Coach Mack with just over a minute off the clock. The Panthers maintained a 19 to 20 point lead for the remainder of the quarter until Josh Deal finished the quarter for the Vikings with an old fashioned 3 point play to narrow the gap to 17, 50-33.

It was evident at this point that the game was controlled by the Panthers unless the Vikings found a spark in the offensive production in the 4th. Summers picked up his 4th foul at the 6 minute mark that opened the possibility for East to seize the momentum as he took a seat on the bench. However, Clint Spitler helped keep the Viking horde at bay in Summers absence. Spitler had two nice passes to Innis and J.T. Stone in the quarter to keep the margin comfortable for the Panthers. Stone scored 7 of his 12 points in the quarter going 5 for 7 from the free throw line. The Vikings never gave up and narrowed the gap to 11 with less than 2 minutes to play but it was not meant to be on this windy, rainy night in West Alexandria. TVS prevailed to take the driver’s seat in the race for the boys’ conference title.

East played 4 conference games in eight nights with tough losses on the road at Covington, Arcanum and TVS. Their only victory was a big one at home to Tri-Village last Saturday night. Fatigue had to be a factor, but Coach Mack didn’t use it as an excuse.

“Well, we knew this was coming” noted Mack. “Four games in eight days with 3 of them on the road. Unfortunately, we lost all 3 on the road. We had a tremendous effort at home at Tri-Village, but tonight, at Arcanum and Covington; we just needed a little bit more.”

“I felt like we got some decent shots, but we seemed to rush it a little bit” Mack continued. “You got to give South some credit. They stepped up and played a good game.”

Coach Augspurger noted that tonight was a big win for several reasons.

“This was a big hurdle tonight because Maimi East plays differently than anybody else we play (in regards to match up style zone), with the exception of Covington who we haven’t played yet. I told my guys we are preparing for two games and how we were going to handle that (intense Viking zone) was a big question mark.”

Reason number 2; “Hickman is really good. He’s one of the better players in the league. He makes all of his team mates better. That is something that good players do.”

Reason number 3; “I have a ton of respect for Allen Mack. He has done stuff as a coach that all of us dream doing” (3 state appearances with one championship). You know that he’s a great coach and they have a sound team, so this was a big win for us.”

When asked about Summer’s 30 point performance Coach Augspurger was clean and to the point.

“Steve is doing things that are going to make it easy for me to argue that he should be the player of the year in our conference," he said. "Especially since the end of December we’ve been playing game after game without the other starters in the lineup, he has just been outstanding.”

“He hit so many big shots tonight” noted Augspurger. “Considering that he has not shot the ball the last two days since he was out sick, makes it more amazing. With some guys I’d be worried, but with Steve I really wasn’t that worried about it. I just wanted him to get healthy. He slept about 12 hours last night and came in feeling better today.”

Austin Schmidt played a good game of defense, but Coach Augspurger gave him some props on handling the Viking pressure, which was another key to the game in the coach’s opinion.

“Austin uses every bit of his athletic ability playing basketball. He has gotten much better at handling the ball. They threw all kinds of defensive pressure at us and for the most part he handled it very well.”

The Panthers did a great job moving the ball against the tough Viking zone and Coach Augspurger noted the improvement of one of his sophomore standouts in passing the ball.

“I’ve been working with Clint (Spitler) in trying to see the floor better. I thought he did a really good job of it tonight and he threw a ton of good passes.”

“It was a good team effort” concluded Augspurger. “I’m very proud of my team. Now we have to stay focused. Covington and Bethel are not easy places to go and win. We can have no let up. Covington’s kids are going to play extremely hard and Bethel’s kids are going to play extremely hard; we got to be ready.”

Scoring by quarters
Miami East…..15…19…33…51
TVS….....……..20…32…50…62

Miami East
Hickman – 14
Carey – 6
Deal - 7
Vega – 8
Miller – 2
Coomes – 7
Beard – 2
Dunivan – 2
Karadak - 3

TVS
Summers – 30
Spitler – 9
Innis – 5
Stone – 12
Strebig - 6

Three point goals
Miami – 5 (Vega 2, Hickman, Coomes, Karadak
TVS – 9 (Summers 6, Spitler 2, Innis)