Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

TIFFIN – Over the past several seasons Clear Creek Amana has earned a reputation as a team capable of putting up a lot of points.

The Clippers can still fill it up on the offensive end but as they demonstrated on Monday they are fully capable of winning games on the defensive end of the court.

Clear Creek Amana limited Dyersville Beckman to 30 percent shooting and held the Blazers to just two points over the final seven minutes while securing a 43-35 win in a WAMAC Conference cross-divisional matchup in Tiffin.

“I’ve been really happy with how we have guarded over the last couple of weeks,” Clear Creek Amana coach Brandon Clubb said. “The lightbulb has sort of gone on for them or we’ve turned the corner or whatever you want to say but we are really playing pretty well on the defensive end and it’s really been a whole team effort.”

It was a team effort for Clear Creek Amana on both ends of the court on Monday.

On offense five Clippers had at least six points in the win led by senior Harrison Rosenberg who came off the bench to score a game-high 12 points.

“That’s just really important to us to have that offensive balance,” Rosenberg said. “Teams try to shut us down by taking away Kyle (Schrepfer) or Ben (Swails) but we’ve found a way to get everybody the ball.”

On defense it was seniors Grant Kruse and Gage Freeman that led the way.

Kruse and Freeman took turns face guarding Beckman standout Padraig Gallagher, holding the junior guard to nine points on 3-of-9 shooting.

“He’s a heck of an athlete and a heck of a player,” Kruse said. “I just tried to do as good of a job as a I could and we had great help defense. It was really a team effort.”
Clear Creek Amana sagged off every Beckman player not named Gallagher or senior guard Logan Goedken in an attempt to slow the duo that entered averaging more than 32 points per game.

The plan was executed to near perfection as Goedken and Gallagher combined for 21 points.

Gallagher, who entered averaging 19.5 per game was more than 10 points below that average.

“We just had to help, help, help,” Rosenberg said. “Grant did a good job of face guarding and so did Gage it was just the help defense that really sealed it.”

Dyersville Beckman (9-10, 7-7) led 6-0 less than 90 seconds into the game but struggled to get anything easy on offense the rest of the way.

Clear Creek Amana closed the opening quarter with a 16-2 run and never trailed again.

The Clippers led 22-17 at the half and 35-28 after three quarters against a stingy Beckman defense.

Clear Creek Amana shot just 38 percent on Monday while posting its third lowest scoring output of the season.

“They play great defense always and they are always a good team and we knew it was going to be a battle going in,” Rosenberg said. “We just pulled through and we battled hard.”

Leading 35-33 with under seven minutes to play the Clippers leaned on their own defense to seal the deal.

Clear Creek Amana limited Beckman to just two points, on a Goedken basket with 2:10 remaining, while outscoring the Blazers 8-2 over the final seven minutes.

“We had to match their intensity, especially on defense,” Kruse said. “They were being really aggressive with us on defense and we knew we had to do the same thing and I think we were able to do that.”

Kyle Schrepfer had 11 points and Swails and Kruse each had seven for the Clippers which improved to 13-6 on the season and 12-4 in WAMAC play.

Clear Creek Amana              16  6  13  8  –  43

Dyersville Beckman               8   9  11  7  –  35

Clear Creek Amana (43) – Kyle Schrepfer 3-10 3-5 11, Ben Swails 3-10 0-0 7, Harrison Rosenberg 5-7 2-4 12, Grant Kruse 3-5 0-0 7, Gage Freeman 2-8 2-2 6, Brody Clubb 0-2 0-2 0, Totals 16-42 7-13 43.

Dyersville Beckman (35) – Logan Goedken 4-8 4-4 12, Logan Burchard 1-8 0-0 2, Cayden Gassman 2-3 0-0 6, Aiden Wessels 0-2 0-0 0, Padraig Gallagher 3-9 2-3 9, Ryan Burchard 1-2 0-0 2, Eric Heinrichs 2-6 0-0 4, Eli Kluesner 0-6 0-0 0, Totals 13-44 6-7 35.

3-point field goals – CCA 4-9 (Schrepfer 2-5, Swails 1-2, Kruse 1-1, Freeman 0-1), DB 3-17 (L. Burchard 0-5, Gassman 2-2, Wessels 0-2, Gallagher 1-4, Kluesner 0-4). Rebounds – CCA 28 (Swails 7), DB 32 (Gallagher 8). Turnovers – CCA 12, DB 14. Total fouls – CCA 9, DB 14. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.

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