Taking advantage of six fourth-quarter turnovers by Niles, Edwardsburg earned a 62-58 boys basketball victory Monday night.

“Our intensity was good all night,” Eddies coach Steve Wright said. “We had some guys working hard and battling. We were in the right areas.”

In a game that featured seven ties and eight lead changes, the Eddies took a 49-47 advantage on a Jon Albrecht layup with 4:44 to play and never trailed again.

Edwardsburg pushed the lead up to five points a couple times Niles pulled to within two twice the stretch. A slashing layup by Chris Brown with 10.5 seconds left sliced the Eddies’ lead to 60-58.

On a night when Edwardsburg was 12-of-28 at the foul stripe, a pair of Dante Razzano free throws with 1.3 seconds remaining and Niles out of timeouts yielded what turned out to be the final score.

“It’s one of those things that you want to draw attention to, but you don’t want to draw attention to,” Wright said of his team’s free throw shooting woes, “You don’t want to get in their heads. It’s a matter of building their confidence. We’ll go back to work tomorrow and try to get them relaxed and confident.”

Razzano finished with a team-best 19 points (nine in the fourth quarter) for the Eddies while Adam Kozinski netted 14 with four of his team’s six 3-pointers and Albrecht 12 (eight in the second half).

“Edwardsburg deserved to win the game,” Niles coach Todd Pawielski said. “They played harder. They out-hustled for the most part. Fifty-eight points for us is terrific. We shot the ball well (23-of-37 for 62-percent). Our defense tonight was pretty embarrassing. Edwardsburg drove around us at will. We couldn’t seem to find the help defense. A lot of credit to Edwardsburg for how they attacked the rim, but we are incredibly disappointed with our defensive effort tonight.

“We had way too many unforced turnovers. The loose balls that we didn’t get really haunted us.”

Playing with flu-like symptoms, Gavin Rasler paced the Vikings with 21 points (11 in the fourth quarter) while Tyler Phillips tallied 11 (seven in the third quarter) while Chris Brown and Donovan Jennings canned eight apiece. Jennings also pulled down a team-high six rebounds.

Niles (4-12) visits Portage Central Wednesday, while Edwardsburg (8-9) goes to Sturgis Friday.

 

 

EDWARDSBURG 62, NILES 58

At Edwardsburg
NILES 58

Gavin Rasler 8 44- 21, Devin Kuemin 1 0-0 2, Tyler Phillips 4 2-3 11, Alex Harpenau 0 2-2 2, Derek Brown 0 1-2 1, Chris Brown 4 0-1 8, Dustin Anders 0 0-0 0, Donovan Jennings 4 0-0 8, Dawson Clemens 0 0-0 0, Bryce Lake 2 0-0 5, Jake Hamm 0 0-0 0, Gatlin York 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 23 9-12 58.

EDWARDSBURG 62

Adam Kozinski 4 2-6 14, Shane Streb 1 2-6 5, Nate Brown 0 0-0 0, Dante Razzano 7 5-9 19, Jon Albrecht 5 2-2 12, Ben Robertson 0 0-2 0, Chase Tarwacki 3 1-3 8, Dylan Layher 2 0-0 4, Cameron Kanyayake 0 0-0 0, A.J. Rosebush 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 22 12-28 62.
Niles                           8          29       43       58
Edwardsburg           11       29        38      62
3-point baskets: Niles 3 (Rasler, Phillips, Lake), Edwardsburg 6 (Kozinski 4, Streb, Tarwacki). Total fouls (fouled out): Niles 21 (C. Brown), Edwardsburg 14 (none). Shooting: Niles 23-of-37 for 62-percent, Edwardsburg 22-of-40 for 55-percent. Rebounding: Niles 22 (Jennings 6, Phillips 4), Edwardsburg 19 (Robertson 5, Razzano 4, Kozinski 4). Turnovers: Niles 18, Edwardsburg 11. Varsity records: Edwardsburg 8-9, Niles 4-12. JV: Edwardsburg 35, Niles 34. Note: Shane Montoya’s 3-pointer in the last five seconds was the game-winner.