The Gehlen Catholic basketball teams resumed their season last night following the Christmas break hosting Akron-Westfield for a doubleheader.
The Gehlen girls basketball team opened up the night dropping their ball game with Akron-Westfield by a final of 60-32.
The Jays came out and played alongside Akron-Westfield for about three quarters of game action and trailed the Westerners 39-29 at the end of the third. Things fell apart in the fourth quarter when they Jays were outscored 21-3 and lost by 28 points. Gehlen head coach Brandon Schaecher says that his team’s performance was the complete opposite of their last practice on Monday.
The Jays struggled to execute much offensively and defensively. Lauren Heying led the Jays offensively with 10 points in the game. Outside of her, it was difficult for any Gehlen Catholic player to get into a consistent rhythm throughout the game. Coach Schaecher says the question now becomes how to translate what their doing in practice to game action.
The Jays fell to 3-7 with the loss. Akron-Westfield improved to 6-4 behind 20 points from South Dakota State commit Natalie Nielsen and 19 points from freshman Makenzie Hughes. The Jays host Hinton on Friday night.
The Gehlen Catholic boys were able to start 2022 with a win by taking down the Westerner boys by a 71-43 final score.
The game was separated at the halftime break by only 13 points thanks to the Westerners going 4-6 from the three-point line in the first half. Gehlen Catholic broke things open in the third quarter by outscoring the Westerners 28-11 to take a monstrous lead that they did not let go of. Gehlen head coach Mike Langel says the key to things picking up in the second half was his team doing the little things well.
The Jays got some impressive performances out of Carter DeRocher and Keaten Bonderson once again. DeRocher finished with 21 points while Bonderson scored 19. DeRocher now sits 11 points away from becoming the fifth Gehlen Catholic boys basketball player to score 1,000 career points. Coach Langel says that DeRocher’s unselfishness makes him an outstanding player.
A performance that may fly under the radar was the play of Ryan Augustine. Augustine scored seven points in the game all coming in the first half with points coming from down low and the mid-range. Coach Langel says that getting Augustine more confident down low is a big key to the Jays success.
Gehlen Catholic is now 7-2 overall while Akron-Westfield drops to 1-9 on the season. The Westerners were led by Jacob Myers who scored 16 points in the loss.
