Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

TIFFIN – After losing three straight games in a span of five days any win would qualify as a good win.

Clear Creek Amana was more than just good on Tuesday.

The Clippers made eight of their first 10 field goal attempts, shot 64 percent in a 45-point first half and snapped a three-game losing skid with a 76-33 win over Vinton-Shellsburg (2-13, 1-12) in a WAMAC West Division contest in Tiffin.

“It was very important to be sharp today,” Clear Creek Amana senior Ben Swails said. “Last week was a struggle with three straight losses against pretty good teams and this was a big bounce back game for us and we knew that. We knew we had to come out hot.”

Swails scored 24 of his game-high 28 points in the first half as Clear Creek Amana raced to a 45-23 halftime lead.

The Clippers never trailed on Tuesday, jumping to a 13-1 lead less than three minutes in.

Kyle Schrepfer had a pair of first-quarter three-pointers and finished with 19 points as Clear Creek Amana improved to 10-4 on the season and 9-3 in WAMAC play.

“It was really important just to get us back on the right track and get back in the swing of things,” Schrepfer said. “We are making the adjustments and getting back into it now.”

Following a 9-1 start to the season Clear Creek Amana dropped three games in five days, falling to Williamsburg, Independence and Burlington.

The Clippers got just what they needed on Tuesday.

“Obviously a win is a win and we needed a win but there are things that we did tonight that we needed to do that aren’t necessarily going to show up in the box score,” Clear Creek Amana coach Brandon Clubb said. “We did stuff that we needed to work on and make sure that we were doing better than last week and that was the important thing for us tonight.”

Clear Creek Amana raced to a 13-1 lead and led 24-10 after one quarter.

Swails made five of six field goal attempts and had 11 points in the opening quarter.

“We had to have fun,” Swails said. “Last week we kind of got away from that and last night we had a really good practice, I felt like the vibe was really good and that carried over to today.”

Clear Creek Amana caused the Vikings fits with its three-quarter court trapping defense, forcing Vinton-Shellsburg into 20 turnovers.

Playing on the top of the press Swails turned a number of those turnovers directly into transition baskets and had 24 of the Clippers’ 45 first-half points on 8-of-11 shooting.

“We struggled defensively last week and we were turning over the ball on offense and today we had almost 20 steals and so that’s great,” Swails said. “We lowered our turnovers and that is our goal every game is to lower our turnovers and play team defense.”

Schrepfer went 6-of-7 from beyond the three-point arc on his way to 19 points as Clear Creek Amana shot 10-of-17 from three-point range.

Harrison Rosenberg added nine points, Brock Hilsman had seven in the fourth quarter and Grant Kruse had five points.

“That was our emphasis coming in to the week was having a new week, a clean week and making sure that tonight we were really sharp out of the gate and stayed sharp the whole night,” Clubb said.

Vinton-Shellsburg                 10  13    7   3    –  33

Clear Creek Amana              24  21  15  16   –  76

Clear Creek Amana (76) – Kyler Ronnfeldt 0-2 0-0 0, Brock Hilsman 3-3 0-0 7, Kyle Schrepfer 6-8 1-1 19, Ben Swails 10-17 5-6 28, Josh Loren 0-0 1-2 1, Harrison Rosenberg 2-2 5-9 9, Grant Kruse 2-5 1-2 5, Gage Freeman 0-1 1-2 1, Brody Clubb 1-2 0-0 2, Cale Berry 2-5 0-0 4, Totals 26-45 14-22 76.

Vinton-Shellsburg (33) – Hudson Carolan 0-2 0-0 0, Cameron Dunbar 2-11 1-2 6, Austin Kemp 0-6 0-0 0, Reese Truax 0-1 0-0 0, Jamin Stiefel 0-1 0-0 0, Benett Rickels 3-11 2-2 11, Ryan Sivola 0-3 0-1 0, Kaden Kingsbury 2-5 0-0 5, Gunnar Moen 2-4 0-0 5, Ryan Carolus 1-2 0-0 3, Caleb Mott 0-1 0-0 0, Max Vasquez 0-2 0-0 0, Kail Evans 1-2 1-2 3, Totals 11-52 4-7 33.

3-point field goals – CCA 10-17 (Ronnfeldt 0-1, Hilsman 1-1, Schrepfer 6-7, Swails 3-4, Kruse 0-1, Freeman 0-1, Berry 0-2), V-S 7-23 (Carolan 0-1, Dunbar 1-1, Kemp 0-2, Stiefel 0-1, Rickels 3-9, Sivola 0-2, Kingsbury 1-2, Moen 1-3, Carolus 1-1, Vasquez 0-1). Rebounds – CCA 33 (Clubb 6), V-S 34 (Rickels 5, Vasquez 5). Turnovers – CCA 12, V-S 20. Total fouls – CCA 11, V-S 20. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.

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