Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

TIFFIN – For the second time in less than a month Clear Creek Amana watched an early lead evaporate and found itself trailing WAMAC West Division rival Williamsburg at the half on Tuesday evening.  

Just like the first meeting the second half of the rematch belonged to the Clippers.

Clear Creek Amana outscored Williamsburg 19-10 in the third quarter to erase a seven-point halftime deficit and held to complete the season sweep of the Raiders with a 61-57 win in Tiffin.

“We had to come out and play our basketball, we kind of went away from that in the first half,” Clear Creek Amana sophomore TJ Bollers said. “After halftime we came out and kind of showed them who’s boss.”

Bollers scored 12 of his team-high 16 points in the second half and grabbed 11 rebounds to finish with a double-double as Clear Creek Amana improved to 8-4 on the season and 5-2 in WAMAC West Division play.

Junior Nick O’Connor had nine of his 15 points in the second half, including a third-quarter 3-pointer that gave Clear Creek Amana the lead for good, as the Clippers shot 61 percent after halftime.

“It’s a rivalry game, they always bring their best against us and it’s always a really tough game,” O’Connor said. “We fought and got the win.”

Williamsburg (3-10, 3-4 WAMAC West) led by five at the half in the first meeting back in December but Clear Creek Amana used a 22-3 third quarter to pull away in a 16-point win.

Tuesday was more of the same.

Clear Creek Amana led by eight after one quarter but Williamsburg closed the first half on a 13-2 run to take a 30-23 halftime lead.

Williamsburg junior guard Kaden Wetjen scored 11 of his game-high 20 points in the third quarter, including nine during the 13-2 run that spanned the final 3:10 of the half.

“We shut him out the first quarter and then he had 11 in the second quarter and he hit some tough 3s,” Clear Creek Amana coach Brandon Clubb said of Wetjen. “We talked at halftime that we wanted him to earn everything in the second half.”  

Clear Creek Amana needed just more than two minutes to erase the halftime deficit, using a 7-0 run to open the second half to pull even at 30 on a Kaden McAreavy 3-pointer.

The third quarter went back and forth with Wetjen giving the Raiders what turned out to be their final lead of the game at 40-39 with a 3-pointer with 16 seconds left in the quarter.

O’Connor answered with a triple of his own from the top of the key with four seconds left that put Clear Creek Amana up 42-40 after three quarters.

“We knew we didn’t play our best half, we were all rattled and we let them get in the game,” O’Connor said. “It wasn’t a surprise to us, it was the second time playing them so we knew they were going to come back, it’s a rivalry game, we just had to limit turnovers, stay confident and mentally stay in the game and we’d be fine.”

Williamsburg tied the game at 42 on a short jumper by Ryan Cavett with 7:30 left but Clear Creek Amana followed with a 9-2 run that gave the Clippers a 51-44 cushion.

Bollers hit four free throws and Tyler Schrepfer drilled a clutch 3-pointer during the spurt that spanned nearly four minutes.

Clear Creek Amana hit all three of its fourth-quarter field goal attempts, including a pair of triples from Schrepfer.

The junior hit a triple from the corner with 62 seconds left that pushed the lead to 57-49 and all but sealed the win.

“At halftime we knew it wasn’t our basketball, we knew we had to step it up,” Bollers said. “We had to clean up some stuff on the defensive end and our shots started falling on the offensive end. We just picked it up and we started making better passes and shot better overall.”

McAreavy had seven points for Clear Creek Amana while sophomore Christian Withrow added six on 3-of-3 shooting.

 Levi Weldon finished with 14 points for Williamsburg which shot 46 percent in the loss.

“We knew it was going to be a knock down drag out when you add the rivalry in to that,” Clubb said. “We talk about there are no style points in winning, we play in a tough league and the second time you play people anything can happen. Totally what we expected but we got it together the second half.

Clear Creek Amana   16  7   19  19  –  61

Williamsburg             8  22  10  17  –  57

Clear Creek Amana (61) – Kaden McAreavy 3-6 0-2 7, Brock Reade 0-0 2-2 2, Nolan Schwarting 2-7 0-0 4, Nick O’Connor 4-8 4-4 15, Tyler Schrepfer 3-8 0-1 9, Christian Withrow 3-3 0-0 6, Mike Potter 1-1 0-0 2, TJ Bollers 4-5 8-12 16, Totals 20-38 14-21 61.

Williamsburg (57) – Zach Litwiller 0-1 0-0 0, Ryan Cavett 3-8 0-0 7, Kaden Wetjen 7-14 2-2 20, Austin Burns 2-2 0-0 5, Draven Williams 2-5 0-0 4, Clayton Thurm 3-4 1-2 7, Levi Weldon 5-14 2-2 14, Totals 22-48 5-6 57.

3-point field goals – CCA 7-19 (McAreavy 1-2, Schwarting 0-4, O’Connor 3-7, Schrepfer 3-6), WB 8-20 (Litwiller 0-1, Cavett 1-4, Wetjen 4-7, Burns 1-1, Williams 0-1, Weldon 2-6). Rebounds – CCA 25 (Bollers 11), WB 22 (Burns 4). Turnovers – CCA 10, WB 13. Total fouls – CCA 9, WB 17. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.

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