ONTARIO — Jacob Trautman and George Friend did the heavy lifting for Norwalk on Saturday.
Trautman scored a career-high 22 points and Friend added 20 as the Truckers picked up their first win of the season with a 54-50 victory over Mount Vernon in the Richland Source NOL-OCC Challenge at the O-Rena.
Norwalk (1-3) was again without the services of sophomore point guard Brandon Haraway and senior swingman Griffin Rinner. Haraway is still nursing an elbow injury suffered during football season, while Rinner will have season-ending surgery on his torn ACL next week.
“George is pretty good offensively and tonight he did a good job defensively,” Norwalk coach Steve Gray said. “Trautman was exceptional. That was his best game this year and it was good to see because he is capable of that.
“We needed this one. We were starting to doubt ourselves a little bit, so that was a big win for us.”
Quick Start: A 6-foot-2 senior, Friend scored six points in the first quarter as the Truckers built a 12-5 lead. Norwalk pushed its advantage to 29-19 at the break as Friend and Trautman scored combined for all 17 points in the second quarter.
“I’ve been getting my shots up the last few games, but they haven’t been falling. Everything was falling for me today,” said Trautman, who had eight points in the second quarter. “After the first one or two shots fell, I was in my zone.”
Mount Vernon, meanwhile, struggled mightily from the field in the first half. The Yellow Jackets (2-3) relied heavily on the 3-pointer but connected on just 1 of 7 triples in the opening eight minutes.
“We’ve talked and talked about having more balance and not relying on all 3-point shots,” Mount Vernon coach Nick Coon said. “Last night we had balance and we were successful (in a 58-37 win over West Holmes). That’s definitely something we need to improve on moving forward.”
Third-Quarter Charge: The Yellow Jackets made things interesting in the third, outscoring Norwalk 13-2 during the first 3:14 of the period. Mount Vernon grabbed a 32-31 lead on Collin Barteau’s triple with 4:46 to play.
“We played harder and played smarter,” Coon said. “Our team is not a team that has much margin for error. To get down 10 points at the half, it’s just too hard for us to make that difference up.”
Norwalk closed the third on a 7-2 run to take a 38-34 lead to the fourth and led 50-45 with less than two minutes remaining. A 3-pointer by Mount Vernon’s Tim Zeller cut the advantage to 50-48 with 20 seconds remaining, but Norwalk’s Jacob Roth and Eric Hull hit both ends of one-and-one situations in the closing seconds to seal it.
“Hull and Roth hit big free throws down the stretch,” Gray said. “That was good to see.”
Finally: Two of Norwalk’s three losses were by a combined five points.
“It feels good to finally get one,” Friend said. “We lost our first game of the season in overtime, so it’s nice to finally get one of these close game.”
Sponsorship: The Richland Source NOL-OCC Challenge wouldn’t be possible without tremendous partners. The NOL-OCC Challenge is presented by Mechanics Bank Be the Change scholarship program in partnership with The Holden Agency, Marco Photo Service and BW3. Supporting sponsors include Olive Garden, North Central State College, The Ohio State University at Mansfield, Rinehart Walters Danner Insurance, Prospering Life Events, Text Loyal, The Vault Wine Bar, Best Buy, and Lantz Star Graphics.
