Norwalk holds off Sandusky for Lake win

SANDUSKY — Sometimes you have to speak it into existence.At halftime, Norwalk's Garrett Chapin encouraged his teammates, telling them that they were not going to lose on the road to Sandusky.Consider it done.The senior hit the game-winning jumper with 34 seconds to go, then the Truckers fended off Sandusky at the end, escaping with a pivotal 51-49 Sandusky Bay Conference Lake Division win over the Blue Streaks."Our theme this week and for the last two weeks has been to find a way to win," Norwalk coach Steve Gray said. "We hung around."The jumper by Chapin gave Norwalk (4-5, 3-0) its first lead of the fourth quarter, but Sandusky (1-3, 1-3) had a chance. The Blue Streaks ran the clock down to 22 seconds before calling a timeout.Sandusky moved the ball around before a corner 3-pointer by Israel Fletcher clanked off. Ommarion Grandberry grabbed the rebound, but his attempt was no good. The ball bounced around as the final seconds ran off the clock, securing the win for the Truckers."We talked about not giving up straight line drives," Gray said. "We had to be able to help and recover and if we got beat, we had to sprint to the back-side block because whoever had the ball was going to shoot it."Dustin Nejedly, who coached in place of Colin Irish, said he thought his squad had the opportunity, but a lack of execution hurt the Blue Streaks."We were looking to get into some pick-and-roll action with Davion (Henry) and Jarrein (Alexander)," Nejedly said. "We did not execute. It might have been there, but we did not execute coming out of the timeout."Sandusky suffered shooting woes at the free throw line. The Blue Streaks made just 7-of-17 attempts on the night including a lackluster 4-of-10 in the final eight minutes."Trust me, it's not from a lack of practice," Nejedly said. "We shoot free throws quite a bit throughout the week, but tonight was not our night from the free throw line. In a two-point game, it definitely sticks out."Sandusky controlled the beginning of the game, despite Henry picking up two fouls in less than three minutes. The Blue Streaks led 14-9 after one quarter and expanded the lead as big as 24-11 after a 3-pointer by Alexander, but the Truckers answered. Caleb Sommers scored and later, back-to-back tallies from Chapin cut the lead to 24-19. Then, Will Gehlhausen hit a triple to bring Norwalk within 24-22 at halftime. Sandusky went scoreless over the final 5:41 of the quarter."To get the score to within two points at halftime was huge because we were down 13," Gray said. "In the middle of the second quarter, we got four or five stops in a row. We have to guard people if we are going to be any good."The Truckers continued playing well early in the third quarter. Chapin scored and consecutive buckets by Gehlhausen gave Norwalk its first lead of the night.The Truckers pushed the lead to 33-28 with 3:59 left in the third quarter, but Sandusky used an 11-0 run — capped on back-to-back scores from Kye Scott to take a 39-33 lead into the final eight minutes."We wanted to pick up the pressure and play at our tempo," Nejedly said. "We wanted to dictate tempo and for a lot of the game, we did."Alexander paced Sandusky with 13 points while Fletcher scored 10 points. Daylen Green added eight points before leaving the game injured with 50 seconds left in the third quarter."I can not fault the kids' effort," Nejedly said. "They played hard for 28 out of the 32 minutes. I thought for the most part, we played really hard tonight."Norwalk was led by Chapin's 26 points and 12 rebounds. Gehlhausen added 15 points for the Truckers, who are back in action Saturday when they host Bellevue (0-4, 0-2) in SBC Lake play."We have a lot of areas that we can grow in as a team," Gray said. "We did not handle the pressure as well as we should have and we made some poor decisions offensively. In the junior varsity game, Norwalk improved to 6-2 with a 46-37 victory. Parker Evans had 14 points, Braeden Demuth had eight, while Grifffin Peiples added seven and Ashton Coe scored six. NORWALK (4-5, 3-0) Will Gehlhausen 6-1—15, Ian Minor 1-0—2, Garrett Chapin 11-4—26, Caleb Sommers 2-0—4, Kyler Kromer 1-0—3, Carson Bauman 0-1—1. TOTALS 21-6—51. SANDUSKY (1-3, 1-3) Daylen Green 3-2—8, Israel Fletcher 4-0—10, Omarrion Grandberry 2-0—4, Davion Henry 0-2—2, Jarrein Alexander 4-3—13, Malaky Johnson 3-0—6, Kye Scott 3-0—6. TOTALS 19-7—49. Norwalk 9 13 11 18 — 51 Sandusky 14 10 15 10 — 49 3-point FGs: (N) Gehlhausen 2, Kromer; (S) Alexander 2, Fletcher 2 JV: Norwalk, 46-37