Bellwood-Antis is a team filled with a lot of young players with potential, but before the Blue Devils can reach the next level, they will have to experience some growing pains. Wednesday night the pain was named Dan Lewis.
The Penns Valley star, who was matched up against sophomore Alan Wertz, finished with 22 points, and shut down Bellwood-Antis\’ offense with blocked shot after blocked shot in the Rams\’ 68-29 victory.
“This is a kid who is being looked at by big division two and some division one colleges going up against a 10th grader. Alan Wertz will be a good player for us someday, but he was thinking too much tonight,” Bellwood-Antis Head Coach Tim Keech said.
Despite the lopsided final score, the game was close early. Jake Wiest opened the scoring with a layup, and Lewis made one of two free throws to put Penns Valley ahead by three. Blaze Winterstein put Bellwood-Antis on the board with a free throw, and L.J. Seidel caused a turnover on defense, beat Penns Valley\’s players down the court, and put in a layup to tie the game.
Halfway through the first quarter, with both teams playing tough defense, Penns Valley got two free throws from Neil Myer to give them a lead they would never lose.
With Penns Valley leading 7-3, Paul Christner found Seidel for an easy layup to cut the Rams\’ lead to two, but a Myer layup off of a steal from the full-court press began a 6-0 run to put Penns Valley up eight.
Ben Hatch, Bellwood-Antis\’ leading scorer in their first game against Tyrone, made a layup, and Wertz added a jump shot to cut the lead to 13-9, but Wiest hit a layup with five ticks left in the first quarter. Tyler Elvey\’s half-court 3-pointer bounced off the rim, and Penns Valley led by six after one.
Lewis rebounded from a quiet first quarter with a 3-pointer on Penns Valley\’s first second-quarter possession, and Andy Markle added a jump shot to make the score 20-9.
Anthony Jenkins tried to keep the Blue Devils in the game with a bank shot, but it would be the last points Bellwood-Antis would score until the final seconds of the quarter.
Led by Lewis, the Rams mounted a 9-0 run to all but finish off the Blue Devils and led 31-13 at halftime.
Any chance of a second half comeback was ended quickly when Wiest and Myer opened the third quarter with consecutive 3-pointers. For the second straight quarter, Bellwood-Antis managed only four points, and heading into the final quarter they were down 48-17.
Lewis added seven points to his total early in the fourth quarter before taking the final four minutes off as Brandon Von Voight took over the assault, scoring all of his nine points in the final minutes.
Wertz scored the final points of the game by making four consecutive free throws for the Blue Devils to finish with eight points, one behind team leader L.J. Seidel\’s nine.
“I hope our fans can see that we don\’t have a lot of experience, and they realize we probably just played the two toughest teams on our schedule. I think we\’ll have more of a feel of this team once we get into the other games,” Keech said.
Although the team struggled in many aspects Wednesday, Keech does see some encouraging signs.
“I didn\’t think their press affected our offense too much. We got the ball in fine, but we just couldn’t put it in the basket. This team doesn’t quit, and they are trying out there,” Keech said.
Bellwood-Antis will play their next game at home against Mount Union. Junior varsity tip off is scheduled for 6 p.m., with the varsity game following at 7:30 p.m.
Junior Varsity
Penns Valley started the game on an 8-0 run and never trailed as they beat Bellwood-Antis 34-18. Brandon Von Voight led all scorers with nine points, and Alan Wertz led the Blue Devils with five.
Bellwood-Antis 29 Penns Valley 68
BELLWOOD-ANTIS – Hatch 2 0-0 4, Winterstein 0 1-2 1, Christner 0 0-0 0, Seidel 4 1-2 9, Wertz 2 4-4 8, Elvey 2 0-0 5, Boone 0 0-0 0, McCrum 0 0-0 0, Jenkins 1 0-0 2. TOTALS 11 6-8 29.
PENNS VALLEY – Myer 3 2-2 10, Wiest 3 2-2 9, Markle 3 0-1 6, M. Brown 0 0-0 0, Lewis 8 3-5 22, Von Voight 3 3-4 9, N. Brown 1 2-2 4, DeLoof 2 0-0 4, Musser 2 0-0 4 TOTALS 25 12-16 68.
Score by Quarter
Bellwood-Antis 9 4 4 12 – 29
Penns Valley 15 16 17 20 – 68
Three-point goals: Bellwood-Antis 1 (Elvey 1). Penns Valley 6 (Lewis 3, Myer 2, Wiest 1).
