Published: February 22, 2008 11:56 pm      

Winning season for Skins

This one’s for the scrapbooks of the Goshen High School boys basketball team.

The Redskins clinched the program’s first winning season in five years Friday night with a 61-48 victory over the West Noble Chargers in Ligonier.

Ethan Hussey, 6-2 junior, led a trio of Goshen double-figure scorers with 23 points. Cam Snyder, 6-1 senior, tallied 11 and 6-6 senior Nathan Stegelmann 10.

Goshen takes an 11-9 record into a Class 4A sectional opener at 6:30 Tuesday night against the Concord Minutemen at North Side Gym in Elkhart.

“I’m extremely happy for the kids,” said Redskin coach Brian Bechtel. “Obviously, a winning season was one of their goals. We hadn’t been achieving some of our mini goals during the second semester, so it’s good to scratch this one off the list.

“I thought our student following helped give the team a lot of energy, like they did for all of our road games. That’s a good barometer of the friendships among our students.”

In this regular-season finale, Bechtel employed an 11-player rotation and nine Redskins scored.

Alex Aguilar, 5-9 junior, scored five points, 6-0 senior Ryan Bartley and 5-10 senior Josh Randall both three. With two apiece were 6-1 senior Brad Sink, 5-10 senior Jordan Short and 6-0 junior Andrew Bowers.

Also playing key minutes were 6-1 junior Brock Bender and 6-4 sophomore Taylor Kolbus.

The Redskins continued to shoot amazingly good in away games. They were 21-of-41 from the field overall, 7-of-13 on 3-point tries, and 12-of-15 at the free-throw line. Goshen now has a 6-3 road record.

Stegelmann grabbed five rebounds and Hussey four as the Skins won the board battle, 19-18.

West Noble was led by 6-0 senior Jeff Wysong whose 12 points came on 6-for-6 shooting from the field. He was also the game’s top rebounder with seven.

Mat Gangwer, 6-0 senior, tallied 10 points for the Chargers, 6-2 sophomore Cody Hastings eight, 6-0 junior Nick Spencer seven and 6-0 junior Mario Pizana six.

WN had a strong shooting night from the field, going 19-of-34 overall including 7-of-16 from ‘3’ land. The Chargers got only four free-throw tries, making three.

The Redskins vaulted to a 16-3 lead in the first 5:17 of the game. Hussey hit a trio of ‘3s’ while Snyder hit a 17-footer, Bartley a 3-pointer and Stegelmann a layup off a feed from Bartley.

The rest of the game was a 45-45 deadlock, but the 13-point deficit was too great for the home team to make up on its “Senior Night.”

When Bowers scored on a pass from Bartley midway through the second stanza, Goshen enjoyed a 29-13 lead. It was 33-20 at halftime.

The Redskins, who had just four turnovers in the first 16 minutes, got a bit sloppy in the third quarter with five. The Chargers had trouble catching up, mainly due to 22 turnovers of their own throughout the game.

Wysong scored underneath and Ganger hit a ‘3’ from the left side in the last minute of the third period to get the Chargers within 47-36.

Goshen stretched its lead to 55-41 with 2:22 to play and West Noble cut it to 57-48 before the Redskins tallied the final four points of the night, all free throws by Hussey.

“We were clicking on all cylinders in the first half,” said Bechtel. “When we play good defense, like we did early in this game, it gets our offense going.

“I was a little disappointed how we finished the game. We often weren’t where we needed to be on defense and a bunch of turnovers, trying to force things, killed our momentum.

“But also, West Noble played with much more confidence in the second half.

“We were able to use a lot of different combinations in this game. By now, we should have confidence in anyone we put in there.

“To win the sectional next week, it will take three strong performances and for us that means we must play good team basketball.”

West Noble, 6-14, meets Columbia City at 7:45 Wednesday night in a Class 3A sectional at Wawasee in Syracuse.