Trinity defeats Shoals

 After having a poor shooting performance the night before on the road, the Trinity Lutheran boys basketball team was finally in the presence of their home crowd playing against a winless Shoals team on Saturday night.

The Cougars built an early lead in the beginning and rolled to the 68-45 win.

"Actually it feels good to get the win in our first home game," Cougars coach Jon Sprengel said. "I was really pleased with the way they played tonight and liked how we moved the ball better in the second half. Also, I liked how we got the ball up and down the court. The one thing we talked about is how we need to do a better job defensively of stopping penetration."

The Cougars began the game by scoring the first five points, but the Jug Rox battled back and tied the game at 5-5.

The Cougars then stepped up their defensive effort and forced the Jug Rox into seven turnovers and outscored them 12-1 to win the first quarter 17-6.

Cameron Hensley hit a bucket to extend the lead to 19-6 to start the second quarter, but the Jug Rox scored five straight points to cut the lead to single digits. Jeffery Pinnow and Bradley Tabeling gave the Cougars a 23-11 lead.

Tyler Price drained a 3-pointer for Shoals to cut the lead to nine, but that was the closest they got the rest of the game.

Matt Stuckwisch scored and Chad VanLiew converted a 3-point play for a 28-16 lead. At the 1:04 mark of the second quarter,

Shoals coach Brian Smith picked up a technical foul and Derrick Shelley hit one free throw. The Cougars led 33-18 at intermission.

"We had pretty balanced scoring," Sprengel said. "I don't know who scored what but we had one person with 11, three players scored nine and one player scored eight. If we can continue to do that and get four players to score eight to 12 points a game, then we will be hard to stop.

"We did shoot the ball pretty well and we did rebound the ball better offensively tonight which gave us some second-chance opportunities. We also shot the ball better from the free throw line tonight than Friday night."

The Cougars outscored the Jug Rox 35-29 in the second half.

Also, in the second half, the Jug Rox sophomore guard Garrett Bateman was warming up as he hit two 3-pointers and scored 22 points.

The Cougars had 10 players score in the game as VanLiew led the team with 11. Hensley, Tabeling and Brandt Frische all had nine, while Pinnow had eight.

"Overall, it was a pretty good game from the floor for us," Sprengel said.

The Cougars won the battle of the boards 30-19 as Tyler Pottschmidt pulled down nine, while VanLiew had seven.
The Cougars fell to Switzerland County on Friday 76-45 on the road.

The Pacers led early and often and cruised to the easy win, but Hensley scored a team-high 15 and VanLiew added 10.

The Pacers led 14-8 after the first quarter and 27-19 at the break. The Cougars were then outscored 49-26 in the second half.
The Cougars are 2-3 on the year and they will travel to Rock Creek on Friday night.

Box scores

Saturday at Trinity
Shoals 6 10 12 17 - 45
Trinity 17 16 13 22 - 68
Shoals (0-3): Holt 0 1-2 1, Price 1 0-0 3, Bateman 10 5-8 28, Shartzer 1, 0-0 2, Witt 1 1-2 3, Turpin 1 0-02, Cornett 3 0-0 6, totals 17 7-12 45.
Trinity (2-3): Hensley 4 0-0 9, M. Stuckwisch 1 3-4 5, VanLiew 5 1-1 11, Pottschmidt 2 3-4 7, Tabeling 4 0-1 9, Shelley 1 1-3 3, A. Pinnow 0 2-2 2, Gray 2 1-1 5, Frische 4 1-1 9, J. Pinnow 4 0-0 8, totals 27 12-19 68.
3-point goals: TLHS 2 (Hensley, Tabeling), Shoals 4 (Bateman 3,
Price); Rebounds: TLHS 30 (Pottschmidt 9, VanLiew 7), Shoals 19 (Bateman 5); Fouls: TLHS 14, Shoals 19 (fouled out: Hert; technical: coach); Turnovers: TLHS 19, Shoals 17.
Junior varsity
Shoals 5 7 7  3 - 22
Trinity 16 14 10 10 - 50
Trinity (2-1): Ros Fraga 12, McCory 9, Gray 7, M. Stuckwisch 7, Newkirk 6, T. Hendrix 3, A. Pinnow 2, Hoene 2, Hinton 2.
Friday at Switzerland County
Trinity  8 11 13 13 - 45
Switz. Co. 14 13 26 23 - 76
TLHS (1-3): Hensley 6 0-0 15, VanLiew 4 0-1 10, Pottschmidt 2 0-0 4, Tabeling 2 0-0 5, Gray 0 0-1 0, Frische 2 4-4 9, Pinnow 1 0-0 2, totals 17 4-6 45.
Switzerland County (3-0): Hon 1 0-0 3, Hughes 2 4-4 9, McAlpine 2 0-0 5, Tackett 5 1-1 14, Green 4 4-6 14, Sharp 3 0-0 6, C. Meyer 1 1-4 3, Bragg 8 0-2 16, Pavy 1 0-0 2, Ross 0 2-2 2, T. Meyer 1 0-0 2, totals 28 12-19 76.
3-point goals: TLHS 7 (Hensley 3, VanLiew 2, Tabeling, Frische), Sw. Co. 8
(Tackett 3, Green 2, McAlpine, Hughes, Hon; Rebounds: TLHS 10 (Pottschmidt 4, Pinnow 4); Fouls: TLHS 14, Sw. Co. 16
Junior varsity
Trinity 5  2 8 8 - 23
Sw. Co. 12 8 15 13 - 48
TLHS (1-1): Ros Fraga 6, Hinton 3, Newkirk 3, Hendrix 3, A. Pinnow 3,
McCory 2, Gray 2, M. Stuckwisch 1