Amspoker’s Missiles Seal Bg’s 62-44 Win

Once Bowling Green senior guard Jacob Amspoker hit a 27-foot three-point shot and followed that up with a 25-foot triple on the Bobcats’ next possession, everyone in BG’s gym knew any drama over who would win was over.

Amspoker’s back-to-back triples gave BG a 58-36 lead over visiting Springfield Friday, and the Bobcats went on to get their first Northern Lakes League Cardinal Division win, 62-44.

Amspoker, who finished with four three-point goals and a game-high 20 points, says a couple well-known local basketball aficionados helped him hone his craft.

“It started when I was younger, just getting in the gym a lot, and over the past few years we have gotten in the gym,” Amspoker said.

“And, I’ve gone out to (former BG coach) Von Graffin’s barn and just get a ton of shots up, and I work out with Tim Fralick, who was helping me get a lot better in the offseason.”

BG evens their overall record at 5-5 and 1-2 in the NLL after losing their first two league games to Sylvania Southview (62-52) and Napoleon (58-50).

“It feels great because we started really slow, we had to get back to .500 and hopefully we can keep going up from here,” Amspoker said.

Napoleon (9-1 overall) and Southview (7-2), both 2-0 in the league, were supposed to play Friday in Sylvania but the game was postponed because of weather.

Even though the Bobcats have some work to do, trailing the Wildcats and Cougars by 1½ games, BG coach Mason Roth believes the team’s goals are still doable.

“We were close the first two games against Napoleon and Southview — those are two of the top two teams in the conference right there,” Roth said.

“I told our guys, ‘We still have all of our goals in front of us. We still have everything we want to accomplish. It’s hard sometimes — you lose a couple (games) and you lose track of what is going on, so this is big. We needed this one.’”

The win over Springfield was chaotic from the start with the two teams combining for 21 turnovers in the first half, but BG senior guard Ahmir Ruffin hit a 26-foot three at the halftime buzzer to put the Bobcats ahead, 32-18, at intermission.

Both teams like to play fast and pressure full court, creating a lot of steals and turnovers, and scoring in transition, so Amspoker has another role he plays besides shooting — keeping the offense settled.

“It’s just experience, being in this position,” Amspoker said. “This is my third year now, so I’m just being a leader out there and trying to calm things down when we are throwing the ball everywhere. It gets a little chaotic.”

The Bobcats’ defense forced 18 turnovers, including 10 steals, plus BG made eight three-point goals as a team. Ruffin had two triples and finished with a double-double 19 points and 11 rebounds.

Springfield coach Kyle Linehan, who saw his team fall to 1-8 and 0-3, said his team needs to do a better job identifying and marking their opponent’s shooters. Ruffin and Amspoker consistently found ways to get open.

He says it starts when his team does not shoot well, and the Blue Devils made 5-of-26 field goals (19%) in the first half and finished shooting 28% (15-for-53) from the field. They also made just 10-of-21 free throws (48%).

“It’s frustrating because I think we are generating open looks,” Linehan said. “They don’t fall early and then we try to switch up defenses and we don’t communicate very well getting matched up.

“That is what I got most frustrated with is we had too many breakdowns that are correctable breakdowns — communicating on switches, not communicating on who is matched up — just basic matchups and things like that.

“As we’re getting into the second half of the year we can’t do those things,” Linehan continued.

Meanwhile, the Bobcats, after shooting 44% (11-for-25) in the first half, shot 57% (13-for-23) the second half, finishing at 50% (24-for-48), but they were just 6-for-13 from the line (46%).

BG had 14 turnovers, still too many for most coaches, and Springfield held a 39-33 advantage off the glass, which Roth did not like. However, Roth liked the overall effort.

“We missed a lot of free throws, which is very uncharacteristic of us,” Roth said. “We missed some shots and we turned the ball over late. Sloppy, but we still win by 18 points.

“We played really hard. I thought we guarded really well for the most part. It was not our best defensive rebounding game, but we did enough though.

“We are going to have to clean that up Monday against St. Francis (6 p.m. during Rossford’s MLK Celebration at George Wolfe Field House). Overall, the kids played hard and that is all you can ask.”

BG senior guard Brayden Freyman scored nine points, senior guard Vincent Moosbrugger had five points, five rebounds and two steals, and junior forward Karter Shank scored four points.

Junior guard Ja’ceous Shannon scored three points, senior forward Mitch Keller scored two points, and junior forward Tomas Meek and senior guard Grant Sonner had two steals apiece.

In addition, the game marked the return of senior forward Reece Rath, an All-NLL lacrosse and football player who suffered a football injury last fall and is expected to contribute to the basketball team. In just a couple minutes on the floor, Rath had a steal and a rebound.

Senior forward Aaron Adams led Springfield with 11 points, senior guard Ja’varian Poe had seven points and four rebounds, and junior forward Drew Martin had five points and six rebounds.

Springfield junior guard Camren Whitmire had five points and eight rebounds and junior guard Nate Pople had four points, four rebounds, and four steals.

Freshman guard Kai Taylor and senior forward Brandon Lawniczak scored three points each and junior guard Nate Pope had one point and four steals for the Blue Devils.