Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

TIFFIN – Opening the season with back-to-back double-digit loss to 4A opponents West High and Liberty High wasn’t the most enjoyable experience for Clear Creek Amana.

While those games may not have been all that fun at the time, the early season challenges are beginning to prove valuable for the Clippers.

Clear Creek Amana scored the first 13 points of the game and raced to a 78-50 win over Independence on Tuesday in a WAMAC Conference cross-divisional contest in Tiffin.

“We talked about when we played those teams the opportunity was to get better and not necessarily in the win loss column,” Clear Creek Amana coach Brandon Clubb said. “We came out of those games weathered from the storm that they were and we talked that we wanted to be better when we got into conference and play and obviously tonight it showed.”

Clear Creek Amana lost its opener at West High 85-56 and fell to Liberty High 74-62 in its home opener on Saturday.

Despite the 0-2 start to the season the Clippers believed they were in a good.

That belief began to show through on Tuesday.

Andrew Rotzoll led three Clear Creek Amana players in double figures with 18 points as the Clippers shot 46 percent from the floor.

“Those games taught us about adversity and showed it wasn’t going to be easy,” Rotzoll said. “We went into those games and competed well and we’ve improved a lot, we still have a long way to go but I feel like every game we are getting better and we are only going to go up from here.”

Senior point guard Haiden Hardy had 15 points and 14 rebounds and junior Reece Cochran had 12 points off the bench for the Clippers.

Clear Creek Amana forced Independence (2-1) into 28 turnovers and held the Mustangs to 32 percent shooting and held a 47-30 rebounding edge that included 18 offensive rebounds.

“Those first two games, those are 4A teams, they were bigger and I think we showed in those games that we have it in us to play bigger basketball and to compete with those teams,” Hardy said. “We knew when we got to 3A we would win games.”

Clear Creek Amana wasted no time getting going on Tuesday.

The Clippers held Independence scoreless for more than four minutes to open the game while racing to a 13-0 lead.

Clear Creek Amana led 19-5 after the first quarter and 46-19 at the half.

“I was really happy with how we came out tonight,” Clubb said. “That was our goal was to be weathered from those games and be better but in the back of your mind you had five wins last year and you don’t know how the kids are going to respond but I told them I was really happy with how they approached tonight.”

Clear Creek Amana shot 50 percent (19-38) in the first half using its three-quarter court trapping defense to force Independence into 19 first-half turnovers.

The Clippers turned many of those 19 turnovers into easy baskets in transition.

“We were pushing in transition and looking for the open guy and making the right passes,” Rotzoll said. “Our defense was disruptive, we had active hands and we got a lot of tipped balls and got out and ran.”

Six Clippers scored at least eight points as Robert Meade had nine points and Cale Berry and Ethan Vice each had eight.

“We battled against those teams the first two games and even though we lost those games by double digits we still thought we had it in us to be a good team,” Hardy said. “We started to see that tonight.”

Independence                         5   14  18  13  –  50               

Clear Creek Amana             19  27  19  13  –  78               

Independence (50) – Cameron Dunbar 3-10 2-2 9, Jake Beatty 3-6 4-6 12, Josh Beatty 2-9 2-4 6, Treyton Weber 1-2 0-1 2, Ethan Cahalan 0-2 0-0 0, Brayden Ridder 1-8 0-0 3, Deacon Iversen 2-4 2-2 6, Crayton Iversen 2-3 0-0 4, Carson Rummel 1-6 1-3 3, Kyle Williams 2-3 0-0 4, Gavin Mestad 0-0 1-2 1, Totals 17-53 12-20 50.

Clear Creek Amana (78) – Reece Cochran 5-9 0-0 12, Haiden Hardy 6-19 3-4 15, Brock Hilsman 2-3 2-4 6, Cale Berry 4-8 0-0 8, Andrew Rotzoll 6-14 4-4 18, Robert Meade 4-5 1-2 9, Carter Cooper 1-2 0-0 2, Ethan Vice 3-5 2-2 8, Landon Prince 0-2 0-0 0, Totals 31-67 12-16 78.

3-point field goals – CCA 4-15 (Cochran 2-3, Hardy 0-2, Berry 0-2, Rotzoll 2-7), IND 4-21 (Dunbar 1-5, Ja. Beatty 2-4, Jo. Beatty 0-4, Cahalan 0-1, Ridder 1-5, D. Iversen 0-1, Willliams 0-1). Rebounds – CCA 47 (Hardy 14), IND 30 (D. Iversen 5). Turnovers – CCA 18, IND 28. Total fouls – CCA 18, IND 16. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.

Did you enjoy this subscription free article? Help keep Your Prep Sports free by donating.