Late run seals Bellevue win over Upper Sandusky, 55-43

By BRAD FRANK
Gazette Sports Editor

An increase in their defen­sive pres­sure afforded the Belle­vue Red­men a 13–0 run on Tues­day, result­ing in a 55–43 win over the vis­it­ing Upper San­dusky Rams in a non-league var­sity boys bas­ket­ball game.

Belle­vue held a close lead through­out the first half, hold­ing a 28–20 lead at halftime.

Red­men junior Charles Dendinger notched 13 of his 15 points in the first half, with team­mate and lead­ing scorer, senior Jalen San­toro was held to three points. Belle­vue senior Derek Smith had eight of his 10 points in the first half Tuesday.

The Rams put forth a strong third quar­ter with the help of four made 3-pointers, con­vert­ing their eight-point half­time deficit into a two-point deficit, 38–36, enter­ing the fourth quarter.

A field goal by Upper San­dusky sopho­more Seth Frey tied the game at 38–38 within the first minute of the fourth quarter.

After the game-tying bucket, the Rams went cold, as Belle­vue held them to a score­less stretch span­ning five min­utes, while the Red­men went on a 13–0 run to grab a 51–38 lead with 3:22 to play.

Upper Sandusky’s next points came with 2:40 left in the game, trail­ing 51–40, and the Rams would not move any closer toward the lead Tues­day, as Belle­vue pulled out the 55–43 win.

Belle­vue coach Mike Raif­s­nider explained what changed for his defen­sively that resulted in the score­less stretch by Upper Sandusky.

“They’re so delib­er­ate offen­sively that we got stag­nant with what we were doing defensviely. We were play­ing good defense but it was almost ot the point where we were just stand­ing around, so we changed it up,” he said. “We started trap­ping them and got a cou­ple steals off of it, then the next thing you know we go from a tie game to being up (13).

“We just couldn’t stand around any­more. Obvi­ously, our defense led to some of our offense.”

Bellevue’s first-half scor­ing com­prised of 15 points off of made 3-pointers out of its 28 total points. Dendinger and Smith com­bined for all five threes.

San­toro had six assists, six rebounds and five steals, along with 6-for-7 shoot­ing from the free-throw line Tues­day. Red­men senior Trent Stamm pulled down nine rebounds.

With the help of an 11-point fourth quar­ter, San­toro tal­lied a game-high 18 points. Dendinger fin­ished with 15, and Smith 10. The trio reached double-digit scor­ing, despite each being held score­less in one of Tuesday’s quarters.

Dendinger has now scored double-digits in three of Bellevue’s last four games. Raif­s­nider assessed Dendinger’s recent play offensively.

“I think Charles is play­ing with a lot of con­fi­dence. He’s look­ing to score. He’s had games where he hasn’t been assertive enough offen­sively,” Raif­s­nider said. “He put the ball on the floor tonight [Tues­day], took it to the bas­ket and got shots that way.”

Raif­s­nider feels things have come together offen­sively lately for his ballclub.

“We’ve made some huge strides in the last week and a half, with what we are doing offen­sively,” he said. “The kids are start­ing to play with con­fi­dence. We were just so far behind at the begin­ning of the year.”

Tuesday’s win was Bellevue’s third con­sec­u­tive and puts the team over .500 for the first time this season.

For the first time this sea­son, Belle­vue won a game with­out scor­ing 60 or more points, as the team was 0–6 when scor­ing under 60 enter­ing Tuesday’s game. The rel­a­tively low scor­ing out­put Tues­day was a result of Upper Sandusky’s pref­er­ence to be patient when try­ing to exe­cute offensively.

The Red­men (7–6) dealt with a late start to their sea­son due to the football’s team extended season.

Bellevue’s junior var­sity romped Upper San­dusky, 51–15.

The Red­men scored 36 second-half points after hold­ing a 16–8 half­time lead and held the Rams to a pair of two-point quarters.

Clay Fries paced Belle­vue with 15 points. Ross Ger­win added 10, while Thomas Pressler tal­lied eight.

Brad Roeder led Upper San­dusky with nine.

BOXSCORE
Var­sity
Upper San­dusky 43
Joe Reile 2–0-6, Cody Clif­ford 3–2-10, Trent Howard 5–0-13, Brad Roeder 0–1-1, Cody Collins 1–0-2, Seth Frey 2–0-5, Stu­art Young 1–0-2, Car­son Mit­ter­maier 2–0-4. Totals 16–3-43.
Belle­vue 55
Derek Smith 4–0-10, Jalen San­toro 6–6-18, Charles Dendinger 6–0-15, Josh McNeely 1–0-2, Trent Stamm 2–1-5, Seth Lin­der 2–1-5. Totals 21–8-55.
Score by quar­ter
Upper San­dusky 10 10 16 7 — 43
Belle­vue 13 15 10 17 — 55

Junior Var­sity
Upper San­dusky 15
Brad Roeder 3–3-9, Cory Miller 1–0-2, Andre Myers 0–2-2, Kent Swavel 1–0-2. Totals 5–5-15.
Belle­vue 52
Dylan DeWitt 2–0-5, Thomas Pressler 3–1-8, Isaac Hart­ley 1–0-2, Ross Ger­win 5–0-10, Shane Miller 3–0-6, Clay Fries 5–5-15, Grant Vick­ery 2–1-6. Totals 21–7-52.
Score by quar­ter
Upper San­dusky 6 2 5 2 — 15
Belle­vue 6 10 18 18 — 52

Posted by Brad Frank on Jan 22 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.