SYRACUSE – Sometimes a team performs so poorly it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Outside of Trevon Coleman, Wawasee is going to need a bunch of mints to get rid of the taste left by its offensive performance in a 44-28 Northern Lakes Conference loss to Elkhart Memorial Friday night.
Coleman had a game-high 17 points, including 12 of his team’s first 18 points, and often with two and three Elkhart Memorial defenders shadowing him once he got the ball.
The senior center had the Warriors’ only field goal in the first quarter, and Aaron Evans hit a trey with 1:50 left in the second quarter to become the first Warrior other then Coleman to score.
The Warriors were 3 of 17 from the field in the first 16 minutes, with Coleman hitting half of his four shots. Still, Wawasee trailed by just five, 16-11, at intermission, thanks in part to forcing five Crimson Charger turnovers in the second period.
“We continue to fight, even though we didn’t play well tonight,” Wawasee coach Jon Everingham said. “It’s hard to pick our positives. You look at rebounding and that’s been a struggle for us, we have trouble going to a man-to-man defense because of containing penetration, then when we go to a zone we have trouble rebounding.
“We’re trying to balance some of that stuff, and I thought we did a better job of battling on the boards tonight. On the defensive end, we go into halftime having had a disasterous first half offensively and we’re only down five points. Our defense allowed us to hang in there for a little while, and we need to get better offensively.”
Coleman was 6 of 12 from the floor in the game, and the rest of the Warriors went 3 of 20.
“Tonight you could see a focus on getting the ball inside to Trevon, and he’s trying to make some moves we think are going to be effective for him the remainder of the year,” Everingham said. “We saw, about half the time he caught the ball, an efficient move that got him a season-high in points.
“But when they double- and triple-team him, and he kicks the ball out, we need to find somebody who’s going to step up and hit shots.”
As far as Everingham is concerned, there’s only one way to heal what ails the Warriors.
“We’re going to get back to work,” he said. “It makes it really difficult to win basketball games when you’re shooting the percentages we are. I thought Trevon played better and he’s going to give us a chance to stay in games, and our defense is going to give us a chance to stay in games.
“Our overall attitude is really good and we’re ready to get back to work on Monday.”
The Chargers got 12 points each from Trey Gallope (who hit all six of his shots from the floor) and Javon Forrester. Memorial got the win despite a dozen turnovers and not making a three-point shot.
Memorial won the junior varsity contest 44-32 over Wawasee. Evan Eshbach had 10 points, with Austin Miller and Ethan Hardy adding six points each for the Warriors.
The Warriors (3-9 overall, 1-2 NLC) will play their first road game since Dec. 15 when they travel to Plymouth on Friday.
