PLYMOUTH – It was as much of a “must win” situation as you can have on a Senior Night make-up game, and Plymouth came away with a 58-36 win over Goshen, who coincidentally will be the Pilgrims’ first-round opponent in the sectional at Elkhart’s North Side Gym Wednesday night.
Having lost five of their last six games the Pilgrims were looking to send a message and Plymouth coach Ryan Bales had another message after the game for his team – this was not the same Goshen team that they will see in a week.
“I told them that as soon as we got into the locker room,” said Bales. “We played great tonight, the bottom line is this time of year you have to play hard. Next week you have to have trust in your defense, the offense will always come. You get to the post season and that doesn’t change. The defense has to be even better.”
It couldn’t have been a lot better than it was in the first half for the Pilgrims as they held the Red Hawks to just eight points heading in at the break. The second half would be almost an entirely different game.
Goshen hit 16 points in the third quarter and started making a concerted effort to get the ball into their big post man Porter Revoir and letting their other big – Bryant Robinson – run the floor a little bit leading to some success.
“I think Goshen had a good game plan,” said Bales. “(Michael Wohlford) is a great coach, I thought we just had great back side help and we made them work. That was the bottom line was we wanted to make them work and by the end of the night I think we did that.”
“I think our bigs did a good job,” said Bales. “Kendall (Himes) and Bryce (Carmichael) did a good job of getting low on (Porter) Revoir, and you see what he can do. When he gets it down low he’s tough to stop.”
In the second half the Pilgrims shooters came alive with 21 points in the third quarter and 16 more in the fourth.
“We were fortunate that they missed some shots,” said Bales. “They didn’t shoot the three very well tonight and fortunately we did and we really took advantage of it in the second half.”
“Our seniors set a great tone,” said Bales. “We battled in the paint and we battled on the wing and that’s two things that we talked about defensively we had to have great wing ball pressure and we had to battle down low.”
Senior Clay Hilliard ended his last regular season game at Plymouth with 17 points, five rebounds and five assists. Cole Filson added another 10, Tim Tremaine had eight and Bryce Carmichael had a basket meaning all four Plymouth seniors scored on the night.
With Joe Barron out with an illness for a second straight game Tremaine has seen more floor time and according to Bales has earned it.
“We know that Tim (Tremaine) can hit some shots but he had some hustle plays tonight,” said Bales. “He’s doing some really, really good things. Taking charges and diving on the floor. That’s where he’s getting his minutes along with being able to shoot the ball.”
Plymouth is now 14-8 and faces a rematch with Goshen on Wednesday. The Red Hawks are now 8-13 with a game tonight against Michigan City Marquette.
•PLYMOUTH 58, GOSHEN 36
at Plymouth
Goshen 4 4 16 12-36
Plymouth 12 9 21 16-58
Goshen (36) – Barker 2 1-1 5, Hogan 2 0-0 4, Good 0 0-0 0, Cain 0 0-0 0, Beck 0 0-0 0, Newell 1 0-0 2, Revoir 5 0-2 10, Singer 1 0-0 2, Robinson 5 1-1 13. Totals 16 2-4 36.
Plymouth (58) – Hunter 1 0-0 2, Hilliard 6 0-0 17, Carmichael 1 0-0 2, Folson 4 1-1 10, Reichard 8 0-1 18, Tremainie 3 0-0 8, Dolan 0 1-2 1, Winkle 0 0-0 0, Himes 0 0-0 0. Totals 23 2-4 58.
3 pt. FG – Goshen 2-14 (Robinson 2), Plymouth 10-21 (Hilliard 5).
Rebounds – Goshen 21 (Robinson 7), Plymouth 20 (Reichard 6).
Assists – Goshen 6 (Robinson 2), Plymouth 15 (Hilliard 5).
Steals – Goshen 2 (Barker, Good), Plymouth 8 (Filson 3).
Turnovers – Goshen 14, Plymouth 7.
Fouls (Fouled out) – Goshen 6, Plymouth 10.
