ONTARIO, Ohio — Shelby coach Troy Schwemley shook his head incredulously as he scanned the scorebook just outside the visitor’s locker room.
“They only had seven 3-pointers?” Schwemley asked. “It seemed like more.”
Ontario’s Griffin Niss connected on four treys and scored a career-high 19 points and the Warriors rolled to a 74-61 win in Northern Ohio League action at the O-Rena.
Trailing 35-28 at the half, the Whippets (5-3, 2-2) cut Ontario’s advantage to 41-39 early in the third thanks to three 3-pointers by Brandon Schneider. Ontario (8-1, 4-0) responded with a game-breaking 20-4 spurt keyed by Niss, a reserve guard.
“We got things going a little bit in the third quarter, then they had that spurt,” Schwemley said. “They had four 3s in a real short period. I was surprised they only had seven.
“That stretch when they hit them all was the difference-maker.”
The 5-foot-9 Niss bounced off the bench to score nine points in the period, all on 3-pointers.
“It was important to hit them with that run,” Niss said. “It finally gave us some momentum. It wears on a team when you get on a run like that.”
Ontario coach Joe Balogh agreed.
“That was crucial for us,” Balogh said. “Griffin was huge off the bench. I’m proud of what he did. We didn’t run anything special for him. Our kids did a good job of finding him when he got the hot hand.”
The third-quarter outburst was the second of two critical runs by the Warriors. Ontario opened the game with an 8-0 run and led 11-1 before the Whippets scored their first field goal, a layup by Corey Cox with 3:37 to play.
“We talk a lot about the first three minutes of the game being important,” Balogh said. “It was important tonight that we were able to get out and get that lead.”
Schwemley was disappointed with his team’s slow start.
“To start the game I don’t think we were ready to play,” he said. “They jumped out on us but we battled back and kept hanging around.”
Cody Stine led the Whippets with 18 points. Schneider added 16 and Trevor Young chipped in with nine.
Andrew Rathburn backed Niss with 11 points for the Warriors. Treyvian Jordan, Bradley Garverick and Paul Homan scored eight points apiece.
Streaking: The win was Ontario’s fourth in a row and snapped Shelby’s five-game winning streak.
“They are a young basketball team and the thing that really scared me is they were playing with a lot of confidence because they had won five in a row and two of them were in overtime,” Balogh said. “When you have a team playing with a lot of confidence, they sometimes can do some things you weren’t anticipating.”
Tempo: Shelby did an admirable job in speeding up Ontario. The Whippets forced 15 turnovers while committing just six themselves.
“They play without any fear,” Balogh said. “I felt we did a pretty good job of handling their pressure. There in the second quarter I think we had two or three turnovers where we got called for traveling in their traps, but for the most part we did a good job.”
Junior Varsity: Ontario made it a clean sweep with a 46-39 win in the junior varsity game.
