By Todd Fertig
TopSports.news
The Silver Lake boys basketball team went into the holiday break riding high off a 62-54 victory over rival Rossville Tuesday night.
The Eagles received a charge from junior Jared Johnson, who came out firing, hitting four 3-point buckets in the first quarter. The Eagles built a seven-point advantage in the first period and maintained a lead throughout.
Silver Lake's Jared Johnson scored 22 points with four 3-pointers in the Eagles 62-54 win over Rossville. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
“I felt like everything was going in. It just felt amazing,” Johnson said. “I think that really built our confidence and we just built off of that.”
“We expected (Rossville) to either pressure-man us or go zone,” Silver Lake coach Shannon Kruger said. “So, if they went zone, we told him to let it fly because he can shoot it. He was making them tonight.”
Silver Lake's Elijah Lopez drives to the hoop in Tuesday's 62-54 win over Rossville. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
Johnson led the Eagles with 22 points. Silver Lake also got 14 points each from Elijah Lopez and Brody Deiter.
As always, a victory over Rossville felt special to the Eagles.
“It was really fun,” Johnson said. “We had a great crowd out there. Our student section was getting into it. You can’t really describe how great it feels.”
Rossville didn’t go quietly after falling behind by double-digits in the first half. They cut the lead to four in the third period. They fell off the pace a bit, but extended the game in the fourth quarter using fouls and timeouts to stage a rally which ultimately came up short.
The Bulldawgs got 15 points from Kameron Badura and 13 apiece from Jakoby McDonnell and Jack Donovan.
“We gutted it out in the end,” said Kruger. “I thought we did some good things in the third quarter to give us a margin and a gap, which we needed because we knew Rossville would fight back. And they did. Their pressure bothered us a little bit. So, we’ve got some things to work on there. But overall, pretty or ugly, a win is a win, and we’ll take it.”
The win sent Silver Lake into the break with a 4-1 record, their lone defeat coming against St. Marys the previous Friday.
“We didn’t make any big changes after Friday,'' Kruger said. "It was our first loss of the year, so it’s (a question of) how do you respond to adversity? In this case, they did a great job. they came back to practice and got to work.
“I think we’re off to a good start. The guys are trying hard. They’re doing everything we ask them to do. They play well together. They get along with each other and they’re great teammates.”
SILVER LAKE BOYS 62, ROSSVILLE 54
Rossville 10 11 11 22 -- 54
Silver Lake 17 11 18 16 -- 62
Rossville (2-4, 0-1) – McDonnell 4-13 5-5 13, Badura 7-11 1-2 15, Donovan 5-11 2-2 13, Jones 2-4 3-4 7, Horak 1-4 0-0 3, Miller 1-4 0-1 3, Bush 0-0 0-0 0, Jackson 0-0 0-0 0. Totals: 20-47 12-15 54.
Silver Lake (4-1, 2-1) – Lopez 4-6 6-7 14, D. Johnson 2-7 3-6 7, Deiter 6-10 2-5 14, S. Johnson 1-4 1-4 3, J. Johnson 6-11 6-8 22, Whitehead 1-5 0-0 2, Razzano 0-1 0-0 0, Martin 0-0 0-0 0, Strausbaugh 0-1 0-0 0. Totals: 20-44 18-30 62.
3-point goals – Rossville 2 (Donovan 1, Horak 1), Silver Lake 4 (J. Johnson 4). Total fouls – Rossville 18, Silver Lake 15. Fouled out – Horak. Technical fouls – None.
