By Chirs Voloschuk
Sports Correspondent
WAPAKONETA – The two teams at Wapakoneta both had to deal with a reversal from their Friday night games. The Wapakoneta Redskins varsity boys basketball team snapped an eight-game losing streak on Friday night with a win over the St. Marys Roughriders while the Minster Wildcats came off a loss to Coldwater the previous evening. On Saturday, it was the Wildcats who bounced back to snag a 53-45 victory.

For much of the evening the usual Friday night spark was not carrying over to the Saturday matchup for the Redskins, although they put up some impressive team numbers. They only turned the ball over four times all night, and, until the fourth period when they were forced to foul to extend the clock, were only whistled six times.
Minster (5-10) shot 41 percent for the game and converted 76 percent (13-of-17) of its free throws. Taking four trips to the line in the final moments, the team shot 6-of-8 to close out the win.
The Wildcats turned the ball over just eight times and never got into foul trouble. They also held a 26-19 rebounding advantage and shot 46 percent from beyond the arc. For varsity coach Mike Lee, it was solid bounceback effort.
“Hopefully we can turn the corner a little bit and take (the win) for a plus and build on that for the next week,” Minster head coach Mike Lee said.
Minster had two players score in double figures, led by freshman forward Devon Poeppelman’s 16.The six-foot swingman, who was only recently inserted into the starting lineup, made all three of his 3-point attempts and scored 13 of his 16 in the second half. He also grabbed a team-high 10 rebounds. Junior Ross Heitkamp was the other double-digit scorer with 12 points.
“(Poeppelman has) a lot of potential,” Lee said. “It’s such a learning process when you’re at that age and you go from junior high ball to the varsity level. He’s a kid that hit some big shots for us and did a tremendous job on the glass.”
Wapak trailed for most of the game and had trouble getting good looks at shots despite good ball movement. Senior forward Jackson Hayzlett scored a team-high 12 points, all on threes, and fellow senior Mike Bogan scored 10.
The Redskins struggled to find an offensive flow mainly because Minster effectively pressured their guards on defense. The Redskins’ top three ball handlers and the usual initiators of the offense, Alex Greve, Shane Helmstetter and Hayzlett, combined to score 16 points. Helmstetter didn’t score and Greve finished with four points, one of his lowest totals of the year.
“Wapak kind of feeds off some of their guard penetration,” Lee said. “They never really got into a flow in terms of one (shot) right after another and that’s what we were trying to guard against that for most of the evening. In that regard, I thought our kids did a pretty good job defensively.”
Senior reserve guard Zane Oen, however, was a major bright spot for Wapak. In his best output of the season, Oen scored eight points, including a layup at the buzzer to end the first period. The shot capped a first eight minutes in which the teams combined to hit seven threes, with Minster taking a 19-16 lead.
In the second period neither team could get much going offensively as Minster outscored Wapak 8-7 and closed out the half up 27-23. Baskets from Hayzlett, Bogan and Jordan Ruppert kept the home team in the game.
The Redskins won the third frame 13-11 and got some strong shooting, capped by a 3-pointer from Hayzlett just as the buzzer sounded. Poeppelman scored seven points in the third, but Wapak closed the gap to 38-36.
At that point, it was anyone’s ball game.
The fourth period got interesting by the 5:27 mark. Down 40-38, the Redskins set up their halfcourt offense and swung the ball to Ruppert in the corner, who knocked down a three with a hand in his face to give Wapak its first lead since early in the first, 41-40.
The lead didn’t last long, though, as the Wildcats went back up soon after and outscored Wapak 13-4 the rest of the way to close out the win.
Other scorers for Minster included Grant Klosterman with eight points, Mitchel Poeppelman with seven and Alex Schmiesing with five. Wapak got additional scoring from Ruppert with five points, Greve and Jake Heinl with four each and two from Alex Parker.
Greve, Bogan, Parker and Justin Steveley were the rebounding leaders for Wapak, each pulling down three. Greve also chipped in three assists.
In the junior varsity game, the Wildcats had to fend off several Redskin rallies before finally pulling out a 61-50 win.