Westminster rolls to win
Westminster Christian knows how to throw quite the celebration for its boys basketball team, and many in attendance Saturday night could have won titles at the World Beard and Mustache championships.
Not only was it a special night for senior guard Arturo Gallego, who got to play in front of his parents who were in town from Spain, Westminster students organized “Bruce Firchau mustache night.” Prior to the game, students even participated in “Pin the Mustache on Bruce” contest.
But after the fun and games ended, Westminster was busy shaving away Genoa-Kingston, and in the process proved why it has the inside-out game that many teams covet.
The hot-shooting Andrew Mason, who scored 16 points by not missing a shot (6-for-6) and Ian Dutcher's double-double of 20 points and 16 rebounds helped Westminster Christian to a 53-39 nonconference win over Genoa-Kingston, the Warriors' first win over the Cogs (5-4) in six years.
“We said at halftime, we got away from (Dutcher),” Firchau said. “He had one touch the last three minutes. We want to be inside-out. He should set the outside game up for us. When we have the outside shooting to go along with the inside game, we're awfully hard to beat.”
Mason was red-hot in the first half. Not only did he can both of his 3-point attempts, he helped fuel an 18-5 run when the Warriors couldn't get the ball into Dutcher, who was just 2 of 7 from the field with 4 points in the first half.
Mason's first and second quarters were carbon-copies of each other 2 field goals inside the arc and 1 behind it. His jumper with 4:08 left in the second off a pass from Brandon Cork gave Westminster a 25-11 lead.
“It was good to get that big run, that big lead early, Mason said. “We wanted, as coach says, to accelerate the whole game, keep taking it to them.”
The Warriors shot 10 for 22 in the first half, but came out in the third resembling more of what Firchau wanted to see.
Westminster went directly to Dutcher, who took over the third quarter by himself. Dutcher scored on an up-and-under to give Westminster a 10-point lead midway through the third and then with 2:30 remaining in the quarter, nailed a hook from the right block to make 37-23.
Then the outside shooting became prominent, as Cork nailed a 3 right after Dutcher's hook to increase the lead to 17. A 15-6 third quarter by Westminster put the game out of reach, as the Warriors shot 45 percent in the quarter and 46 percent overall.
“When I have two or three guys on me, I know I can kick it out and they'll make the shot,” Dutcher said. “Then I can try to make the rebound if they miss. The first half I was trying to like fadeaway, that's why I only made two shots. In the second half, my coaches, coach Engle, was saying to just go in and that helped me instead of going out and going in and scoring.”
Westminster outrebounded the Cogs 39-16 along with 7 offensive rebounds that spurned into 6 huge points, one play where junior Josh Beachler tip-passed to Dutcher cutting to the hoop with 5:50 in the second quarter. The Cogs had no match inside and couldn't knock down a barn, shooting a paltry 27 percent.
“The first half I thought we did a good job of being physical with (Dutcher), pushing him out of the block area,” Cogs coach Cory Jenkins said. “We wanted to focus on keeping his post position outside the block. He just got too deep with his size. It's over at that point when he gets that deep.”
Bryan Baumgarten led the Cogs with 13 points.