Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

SOLON – Carson Yakish just had one of those feelings.

The Solon senior guard entered Tuesday’s home matchup with Williamsburg feeling like he was in for a big night.

His feeling turned out to be as on the money as his jump shot.

Yakish hit his first five shots and poured in a career-high 18 points as Solon won its third straight with a 47-39 win over Williamsburg in a WAMAC cross-divisional contest in Solon.

“I just had a lot of confidence coming into tonight, thinking I would have a big night,” Yakish said. “I hit the first shot and it just continued from there and I got into a good rhythm.”

Yakish buried four 3-pointers and scored 14 of his team-high 18 points in the opening quarter as Solon bolted to 18-2 lead after one quarter that ballooned to a 30-9 bulge by halftime.

That was enough for the Spartans who weathered a five-point third-quarter and 22 second-half free throw attempts by Williamsburg to improve to 4-5 on the season.

AJ Coons joined Yakish with 18 points as four players accounted for all 47 Solon points.

“It’s huge when we hit shots early it really helps us get into the flow of our offense and just get points up on the board early,” Coons said. “We were able to do that tonight and it was a big boost for everyone.”

Solon never trailed on Tuesday thanks in large part to Yakish who came out firing in the opening quarter.

After a slow offensive start for both teams Coons gave the Spartans a spark with a steal and two-handed slam that made it 4-0 midway through the opening quarter.

It was all Yakish the rest of the first quarter.

The 6-foot-1 senior hit 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions and scored on a layup off a feed from Coons to push the lead to 12-0 with 1:29 left in the quarter.

“Everything was just wide open,” Yakish said. “The ball got put into my hands at the right time and I just let it fly.”

Williamsburg got on the board on a bucket by Clayton Thurm but Yakish closed the quarter with back-to-back 3-pointers in a span of 18 seconds.

“We got our motion down and we just running that really well and getting some good open shots,” Yakish said. “We are getting open looks.”

Coons scored nine points in the second quarter as the Spartans built a 21-point halftime lead.

Solon limited Williamsburg to 20 percent shooting and forced 11 turnovers in the first half.

“I think we guarded really well against West Delaware last Friday so I would say our last two games we have done a really good job of buying into that game plan,” Solon coach Jason Pershing said.

Williamsburg got back into the game in the third quarter outscoring the Spartans 18-5 that included a 10-0 run to close the quarter.

The Raiders got as close as six at 35-29 on a putback by Thurm with 7:31 left but Coons hit a pair of free throws and senior Clay Gerdin scored on a putback to push the lead back to 39-29.

“We didn’t have the best third quarter and got in some foul trouble a little but we had a good bounce back in the fourth quarter,” Coons said. “The last few minutes we were pretty composed and made good plays down the stretch.”

Williamsburg never got closer than eight the rest of the way.

Thurm led the Raiders with 16 points and nine rebounds.

Gerdin had six points and seven boards for the Solon while Cam Miller had 10 rebounds.

“I thought we played great defense and that was really big for us,” Yakish said. “We were getting every board and it just worked out.”

Solon                         18  12  5   12  –  47

Williamsburg              2    7  18  12  –  39

Solon (47) – Luke Van Roekel 0-1 0-0 0, Joe Stahle 0-3 0-0 0, AJ Coons 4-11 9-10 18, Carson Shive 1-4 0-0 3, Cam Miller 0-2 0-1 0, Dave Bluder 0-4 0-0 0, Bo Janssen 0-1 0-0 0, Carson Yakish 6-11 2-4 18, Clay Gerdin 3-4 0-1 6, Totals 14-40 13-18 47.

Williamsburg (39) – Zach Litwiller 1-2 0-1 3, Gabe Schlabaugh 0-3 0-0 0, Ryan Cavett 0-3 0-1 0, Jaden Wetjen 3-16 0-2 8, Austin Burns 0-0 5-8 5, Draven Williams 3-7 1-1 7, Clayton Thurm 5-12 6-9 16, Levi Weldon 0-4 0-0 0, Totals 12-47 12-22 39.

3-point field goals – SOL 3-24 (Van Roekel 0-1, Stahle 0-2, Coons 1-5, Shive 1-4, Miller 0-1, Bluder 0-3), WB 3-16 (Litwiller 1-1, Schlabaugh 0-2, Cavett 0-1, Wetjen 2-7, Williams 0-1, Thurm 0-3, Weldon 0-1). Rebounds – SOL 38 (Miller 10), WB 36 (Thurm 9). Turnovers – SOL 15, WB 16. Total fouls – SOL 19, WB 16. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – SOL (Bench).