John Glenn's full court pressure shuts down River View

NEW CONCORD − Teams are well aware of what's coming when they pay a visit to The Tank to take on the John Glenn boys basketball team.

It's 32 minutes of suffocating, high intensity effort by the Muskies' full court pressure defense. And on Tuesday night a young, injury depleted River View squad had no answers for that pressure and staggered to a 72-51 loss in Muskingum Valley League play.

"We are inexperienced right now in some key spots due to injury, including to our top ball handler Brody Border who is out," River View head coach Ben Belden explained. "And that didn't help the situation, because that is what John Glenn is known for − that full court press. They are really, really good at it and they get after you in a big way.

"They just have a lot of athletic guys that can pressure the ball and also come over and trap effectively," Belden added. "At times we executed our press break pretty well, but against them they make it hard to be consistent. They are just so very effective with that press, it's tough to get anything going."

River View committed a total of 29 turnovers in the game.

"That's one of the things we try to hang our hat on is our full court press," John Glenn head coach Eric Sheck offered. "We've shown times like tonight, where it can really bother teams and create a lot of turnovers. And then other times, teams that have seen us a few times maybe deal a little better with the pressure.

"River View has seen us enough, and they broke our pressure a few times," Sheck added. "But I thought for the duration of the game, we created enough turnovers to really take them out of their rhythm. I thought Kaiden Walls, Will Nicolozakes, Nelson Cameron were very active tonight and got their hands on a lot of balls."

Off the opening tipoff, the Muskies forced seven first-quarter miscues by the Black Bears to take a 23-16 lead. Seniors Walls and Nathan Walker each tallied seven quick points to lead JG's offense.

River View senior Owen Emig tried to keep RV within striking distance, putting up six points in the first eight minutes of action.

River View handled the pressure a little better in the second stanza with only five turnovers, and grabbed a 13-11 scoring edge to trail by a slim 34-29 margin at the halftime break. Emig added five points for a first-half total of 11.

Walker tacked on four points for the Muskies to equal Emig with an 11-point opening half, but he was just warming up.

In the second half, John Glenn forced another 17 turnovers and Walker put up 14 points to finish with a monster night of 25. Walker also pulled down nine rebounds and handed out five assists.

The Black Bears were outscored by a 38-22 margin to slip to 2-12 in MVL play and 6-13 overall.

"We just rely so much on Nathan, we expect a lot from him and he kind of makes us go," Sheck offered. "I didn't even realize he had 25 points tonight, he does so many good things to make our team better. But yet, I still feel he can even give us more with his talent level. He's just done a great job for us for really three years, and when he plays well and contributes with the assists and the rebounds if feeds other guys. And that makes us that much tougher to deal with."

John Glenn (11-8, 9-4 MVL) finished with four players in double figures as senior Bexlee Woodard contributed 14 points, Walls finished with 11 and sophomore Will Nicolozakes tallied 10 to go with four steals.

Sophomore Laired Williamson paced River View with 14 points, with Emig finishing with 11 after a scoreless second half dealing with foul trouble before fouling out in the fourth quarter. Sophomore Cael Summers provided a lift off the bench with nine points for the Black Bears and freshman Layton Massie chipped in eight.

John Glenn collected a 32-27 victory in the JV game to improve to 11-8 on the year. C.J. Dolan led the Muskies with 11 points and Justin Stambush added six. Chase Wright scored 11 to pace the River View attack.

NEXT − John Glenn travels to Maysville on Friday, while River View will host Philo with 6 p.m. JV tip-offs at each site.

Coshocton 77, Meadowbrook 51

COSHOCTON — Colton Conkle poured in 22 points to go with eight assists and five steals, as host Coshocton raced out to a 20-10 lead through one quarter in a 77-51 victory over Meadowbrook in Tuesday's Muskingum Valley League Small School Division contest.

Antwone Johns added 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting with five rebounds and four steals, Bentley Cunningham scored 10 and Coby Moore chipped in eight markers for the Redskins (7-10, 5-9 MVL), who led 36-20 at the half and 59-33 through three.

Coshocton made 31 of 63 from the field and owned a 37-28 edge on the glass with 13 offensive rebounds, while the Colts (0-18, 0-13 MVL) were held to 17-of-49 shooting with 25 turnovers.

Sophomore Colton Delancey finished with 14 points and six rebounds and senior Dayne Singleton had 12 points and eight rebounds to pace the Meadowbrook attack.

NEXT − Meadowbrook will host Crooksville on Friday at 6 p.m.

Buckeye Trail 58, Strasburg 43

STRASBURG − Buckeye Trail picked up a big Inter-Valley Conference road win Tuesday, taking a 58-43 victory over the host Strasburg Tigers.

Trail controlled the battle on the glass with a huge 31-13 rebounding edge, and placed three players in double figures in improving to 7-3 in the IVC and 11-6 overall.

Senior Garrett Burga paced Buckeye Trail with 17 points, with junior Gavin Rome adding 13 and senior Tyler Dodd finished with 11. Junior Charlie Parry chipped in with seven markers for the winners.

Jake Ryan tallied a game high 20 points to lead Strasburg (14-5, 8-4 IVC), with Cole Hutchison adding 12.

NEXT − Buckeye Trail travels to Newcomerstown on Saturday at 6 p.m.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Jeffersonian: John Glenn's full court pressure shuts down River View