Spoodhounds keep stacking ‘revenge’ wins
JON DYKSTRA/THE FORUM
Maryville sophomore Nathan Walter looks to make a pass Tuesday at the Hound Pound.
MARYVILLE, Mo. — January was always a pivotal stretch of the season for Maryville with a stretch of six games where five of those teams handed the Spoofhounds a loss last season on the way to a 13-13 record.
This season, Maryville sits 13-4 and have come out of that stretch and the games leading up to it with 8-straight victories. Tuesday’s contest looked like it may be the most challenging in that stretch with Nodaway Valley, which has four starters back from last season’s team, and a current 17-2 record visiting the Hound Pound.
“It feels great,” Maryville senior Miles Poynter said. “We’ve been on kinda a streak with beating teams who we lost to last year. We use that as motivation to keep on pushing.”
The Spoofhounds had the power of a packed gym on their side, fired up to support Jacob Walter and his siblings playing with Claire Walter in the girls game and Nathan Walter in the boys game. Maryville roared out of the gates in the first quarter and didn’t look back on the way to a 57-40 win over the Thunder.
“They beat us last year, it is part of our redemption tour, revenge tour to try to get some of these teams back,” Maryville coach Matt Stoecklein said. “They responded and I thought we got off to a great start.
“Jacob is a fighter and a great kid. And that family is a great Maryville family with a lot of ties from everywhere. It was great to see all the red, the little kid teams out here chanting ‘Jacob, Jacob, Jacob.’ It was just a great night and prayers go out to the Walter family and Jacob.”
For the Class 2 Thunder with high aspirations for a deep postseason run, although they had hoped to win the game, the experience of playing in front of a large crowd similar to a state quarterfinal crowd is something they can learn from.
“I told them that we can learn a lot from a loss,” Emerson said. “That second half, we could have come out and said, we’re down by 16 at half — but we only lost that half by one. I was proud of the fight that we had.”
Maryville got off to a terrific start behind back-to-back 3-pointers from Colsen Freeman and Jackson Dredge to build a 16-6 lead.
Nodaway Valley answered back with a 6-0 run with 3-point plays by both Tyler Gray and Braxton McGinness. But Freeman hit another 3-pointer and Poynter scored inside to make it 21-12 after one quarter.
While Freeman and Dredge’s shooting helped build the lead for Maryville, it was Poynter on the interior that the Thunder truly didn’t have an answer for. With four inches on the tallest Nodaway Valley defender, Poynter had six points in the first quarter and upped that with eight in the second quarter.
“I just came out with the mindset to set the tone for the entire game,” Poynter said. “The scoring didn’t last the whole game, but I think that it was important to start with it.”
Poynter’s defense in the paint along with Lucas Ziegler had the Thunder second-guessing drives which normally they’d finish. Poynter put the Spoofhounds up 32-16 and the teams went into halftime at 37-21.
“Zig had an insane backboard slap and it is cool to watch when they just jump out of the gym,” Walter said.
While Poynter was unlike any interior defender the Thunder had seen this season, the same could be said for Luke Allen who took the defensive assignment on McGinness, who could easily be an All-State point guard in Class 2 this year. Allen was an all-conference defensive tackle in football and he brings that strength to basketball as well as the incredibly quick feet to stay in front of a point guard of McGinness’ caliber. He held McGinness to three points.
“Other than five or six silly mistakes, our defense was very intense,” Stoecklein said. “We took their best player, No. 3, and Luke Allen just took him out of everything that he wanted to do. I thought that our ball-screen defense was very good. I thought that our bigs did a good job of hedging. Our defense tonight was outstanding.”
In the third quarter, Gray got the Thunder to within 43-32 on a free throw and gave Poynter his fourth foul.
Suddenly after being out of reach most the game, Nodaway Valley had momentum. Nathan Walter responded with a slash to the rim for the final points of the third quarter. Allen scored to open the fourth quarter and push the lead back to 47-32.
“I’m just trying to hit the open guy,” Walter said. “A point guard loves when your open guys are hitting threes and everyone was hitting tonight so that was really awesome.”
Nodaway Valley sophomore Jax Cowden had a big fourth quarter and cut the lead back to 11 on two occasions, but Maryville was able to put the game on ice with a 6-0 run to close it out.
Poynter led Maryville with 16 points while Dredge had 15. Freeman and Allen each had nine while Walter and Ziegler both had four.
Cowden had 16 for the Thunder and Gray had 12. Brayden Sipes finished with seven while McGinness had three and Tye Hoyt had two.
“Our posts did a pretty good job tonight,” Emerson said. “They just came out hard on Braxton and his stuff wasn’t falling for him, but he continued to work on the defensive side.”
Nodaway Valley is at Worth County on Friday. Maryville is at Braymer on Friday before going to Mid-Buchanan on Monday.
“We just got to not let off the gas and keep pushing forward,” Walter said.
Maryville 59, Bishop LeBlond 30
Miles Poynter and Jackson Dredge combined for 34 points last Thursday as Maryville rolled to a 59-30 road win over Bishop LeBlond. Dredge had 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting while Poynter had 16 on 4-of-5 shooting with 11 rebounds.
Nathan Walter and Kallen Yount each had five points while Luke Allen had four, Jackson Wilmes and Lucas Ziegler had three each, Kolby Scadden and Colsen Freeman had two each and Payton Willrich had one.
