Shawnee’s Beckett Bertke (23) drives against Delphos St. John’s Aaron Moenter during Saturday night’s game at Shawnee.
Richard Parrish | The Lima News
SHAWNEE TOWNSHIP — The tone of Shawnee’s 65-58 boys basketball win over Delphos St. John’s on Saturday night was set early.
Shawnee’s Beckett Bertke scored half of Shawnee’s points in the first quarter and St. John’s Cameron Elwer also got half of the Blue Jays’ first-quarter points.
And away they went — Bertke on his way to a 35-point game and Elwer topping that with 38 points.
It was a fun game to watch and not just for the scoring duel between Bertke, a 6-4 sophomore forward, and Elwer, a 6-1 sophomore guard.
It was a non-league, Saturday night game played with the intensity of a rivalry game.
“They beat us pretty bad last year. We didn’t play that well and we really wanted to come out and protect our homecourt,” Bertke said.
Shawnee coach Mark Triplett said, “They’ve got two sets of brothers on their team, we’ve got two sets of brothers on our team. We’ve been going there for summer basketball as long as I’ve been coaching. These guys have played them in middle school, some of them have played them in AAU, some of them have played together in AAU stuff.
“It’s a group of kids that I think there is a mutual respect amongst them. For the most part our sophomore class has never beaten Delphos, so it was a big one for us tonight,” he said.
Shawnee led 34-27 at halftime after shooting 81 percent (13 of 16) in the first two quarters. The Indians led by 10 points, 41-31, with two minutes left in the third quarter.
St. John’s cut that lead to four points three times in the fourth quarter, the last time at 57-53, with less than a minute to play.
But Shawnee closed the game out at the free throw line with Tate Bender hitting 5 of 6 at the line in the last minute of the game.
“He’s made 22 of 27 free throws and he’s been huge off our bench for us all year,” Triplett said about Bender, who finished with 12 points.
“We found a way to get some defensive stops, we made clutch free throws. We didn’t panic down the stretch when Dom (Lynch) fouled out, which was a huge loss for us. I thought our kids’ effort was tremendous tonight.”
When asked about Elwer he said, “He’s fun to watch unless you’re the opposing coach. He’s a dynamic talent and I think we have one, too. Beck is tremendous and those two were kind of matching each other shot for shot, point for point.”
Aaron Moenter added 10 points for St. John’s (8-2). Shawnee improved to 7-4 with the win.
Shawnee shot 67 percent (22 of 34) on field goals. St. John’s connected on 40 percent of its shots (19 of 47). Shawnee had 20 rebounds and St. John’s had 19. Shawnee had 13 turnovers – 10 of them in the first half – and St. John’s had 10 turnovers.
Shawnee 65, Delphos St. John’s 58
Score by quarters:
St. John’s 12 15 12 19 — 58
Shawnee 16 18 11 20 — 65
St. John’s
Cameron Elwer 38, Austin Moenter 3, Joel Schrader 2, Andrew Elwer 3, Aaron Moenter 10, Tyce McClain 2. Totals: 19-15-58.
Shawnee
Beckett Bertke 35, Dominic Lynch 7, Alex Goldsberry 2, Nick Pasion 2, Trevick Bertke 6, Tate Bender 12, Max Goldsberrry 1. Totals: 22-14-65.
Three-pointers: S — B. Bertke 4, T. Bertke 1, Bender 1; DSJ — C. Elwer 2, A. Elwer 1, Austin Moenter 1, Aaron Moneter 1.
Records: Shawnee (7-4); Delphos St. John’s (8-2).
