Villisca boys start year with wins over Griswold, Lenox

GRISWOLD—The Villisca Blue Jays boys basketball team picked up their second win of the season Friday night when they defeated Griswold, 68-58.

Villisca had a six-point lead at the end of one and held the lead at halftime 35-22. Timmy Myers led with 18 points at the end of the first half.
The Tigers kept it close in the fourth quarter and eventually cut their lead down to six. However, Griswold missed an in-and-out three-pointer, which would have cut the lead in half. The Blue Jays made their free throws down the stretch and won the game.
Myers led all scorers with 27 points on 11-of-21 shooting and had 12 rebounds to get the double-double. Marshall Dolch finished the game with 22 points, 15 of which he got in the second half.
Griswold’s Jared Schoning and Grant Haynes each scored 19 points for the night. Haynes made five of the six three-pointers that Griswold made on the night.
Earlier in the week, the Blue Jays opened their 2010 season at home against Lenox, 71-34.
After holding a 38-28 lead at halftime, Villisca shut out Lenox completely in the third quarter, not giving up a single point The Blue Jays scored 15 in the quarter to take the lead 53-28.
“They had a lot of open shots. They just didn’t knock them down,” Blue Jays Head Coach Jim Obermeier said.
Lenox’s scoring drought continued well into the fourth quarter and the Blue Jays scored 16 more points. With 2:08 left in the game and the game clock in non-stop mode, the Tigers scored a free throw for their first point of the half, thus completing the Tigers 31-0 run in the second half.
Lenox scored five more points in the final minutes, but time ran out as the Blue Jays picked up their first win of the season.
Dolch led all scorers with 26 points on 9-of-15 shooting. Dolch also had 16 rebounds, giving him a double-double.
“Part of what we do well is we let Marshall take care of the ball and let him create things,” Obermeier said. “He is a great guy to have bring down a defense.”
Villisca had started the first quarter with a 15-1 run and maintained the double-digit lead through most of the quarter. The Tigers got into foul trouble early, picking up six fouls in less than five minutes. A Lenox foul in the final 30 seconds put the Blue Jays into a bonus situation. Villisca had a 20-3 lead at the end of one.
The Tigers roared back in the second quarter, scoring 25 points. Villisca scored 18 in the quarter, with Dolch scoring 10 of those points.
“I let them know at halftime I wasn’t happy with the way we played defense in the second quarter,” Obermeier said.
Myers and Nick Eblen each scored 10 points in the game. Eblen also had four of the Blue Jays 10 steals and Myers led in assists with five.