By Israel Potoczny
Waynesville, MO – Despite some fourth quarter heroics by Lebanon, the Waynesville Tigers opened the 2016-17 season on Friday with a 57-51 win over Ozark Conference rival Lebanon.
The Tigers led by 16 at the end of the third quarter, but Lebanon chipped away at the Waynesville lead in the fourth and used a prolonged dry spell by WHS to put together a 14-0 run and pull within one point with four minutes remaining.
Lebanon briefly held a one point (51-50) with 2:30 remaining in the game, but didn’t score the rest of the way. The Tigers got a long jumper from 21 after a pair of offensive rebounds to take back the lead with 2:18 left in the game, then senior guard Shaq made a pair of free throws with 55.6 seconds remaining.
Sophomore guard Gunner Rees made two more free throws with 25 seconds remaining to ice the game for the Tigers.
“Jack Ehrhardt is a really good player and has played a lot of Ozark Conference games and Shelton was good for those guys, but we have a lot of guys that are playing their first game,” Waynesville head coach Chris Pilz said. “We had a good crowd in here tonight for our first game and those guys are going to win a lot of games.
“They played and we played well and we’ll take the win.”
The Tigers do not return any starters and just one player in David Adams with extensive varsity experience. Adams and fellow senior guards Shaq Fregiste and Tavon Dipalma all made their first varsity starts and came out of the gate hot in the first quarter as Waynesville put up 24 points and took a 24-11 lead at the end of the first quarter.
“I really like our guys, I don’t know how good we are, but I really like how our guys have had good spirit in practice and been good teammates,” Pilz said. “Sometimes guys like that figure it out and have really good seasons.
“I know our guys are happy because we could have given it away.”
Lebanon (0-1 overall, 0-1 Ozark Conference) got a game-high 20 points from freshman guard Quenton Shelton, who finished the game with six 3-pointers and a pair of free throws. Jack Ehrhardt added 10, Will Richardson seven and Dawson Zimdars and Max Schooler each scored six.
“The fourth quarter is what we are capable of doing,” Lebanon head coach Adam Thornhill said. “But in the first half, we showed some youth an inexperience and we kind of worked through some newness … but that fourth quarter is what we are capable of.
“It is a great learning experience for our guys. It took us four quarters, but we are where we need to be and we’ll going to try to carry it over to next Tuesday (at Marshfield).”
Tahja Stewart, a 6-foot-3 sophomore, finished the game with 11 points and a game-high 13 rebounds, whileTavon Dipalma finished with 13 points and seven rebounds and David Adams had 12 points before fouling out in the fourth quarter.
Waynesville (1-0, 1-0) controlled the boards throughout the first half and ended with a 22-11 rebounding advantage, and finished the contest winning the battle of the boards 41-29. Zimdars led LHS with 10 rebounds in the game, including six in the second half.
“Our guys know how to box out at the defensive end, but toughness is a skill as well and that where we need on right now,” Thornhill said. “We are capable of boxing out and holding that box out, we just need to be tougher.”
High school boys’ basketball
WAYNESVILLE 57, LEBANON 51
Lebanon 11 10 9 21 — 51
Waynesville 24 7 15 11 — 57
Lebanon (0-1, 0-1) — Jack Ehrhardt 10, Quenton Shelton 20, Junior Torres 2, Will Richardson 7, Dawson Zimdars 6, Max Schooler 6.
Waynesville (1-0, 1-0) — Shaq Fregiste 8, David Adams 12, Tahja Stewart 11, Tavon Dipalma 13, Ethan Gatzemeyer 4, Caleb Barnes 2, Gunner Rees 7.
