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Minster's Cole Albers (42) goes up for a shot as New Knoxville's Parker Jones defends.
MINSTER - Cole Albers celebrated Senior Night with 25 points and 11 rebounds, leading Minster to a 55-34 Midwest Athletic Conference victory over New Knoxville Friday night at the Wildcat Gymnasium.
Albers, a 6-8 senior center, was 11-of-14 from the floor and 3-of-4 from the free throw line.
"Our big kid played well," Minster coach Michael McClurg said. "They didn't have much of an answer for him inside and we did a pretty good job of getting him the ball."
New Knoxville coach Kort Fledderjohann threw everything but the kitchen sink at Albers, trying to figure out a way to defend him.
"We tried fronting him, backside help, triple teams, and when he wasn't scoring, he was getting the ball out to one of their knock-down three-point shooters," Fledderjohann said. "So give them credit."
With some ball pressure defense and an uptempo offense, Minster took control of the game early. Seven first-quarter turnovers doomed the Rangers from the start.
Minster's Cole McClurg is trapped by New Knoxville's Evan Fledderjohann (back) and Joel Holland.
Cole McClurg banked in a trey at the buzzer to put the Wildcats up 16-9 after eight minutes.
"We turned the ball over on four of our first five possessions," Fledderjohann said. "And when you can't shoot, you're not going to win basketball games like that."
Minster continued with the uptempo attack and started to pull away in the second quarter. Beckhem Stephey hit a three-pointer from the top of the key, and scored a layup off a turnover on the Wildcats' following possession. Andrew Ketner followed with a trey to give Minster a 28-12 lead with 3:25 left in the half.
"We wanted to pick the pace up because we knew that they would want to make it a possession game," coach McClurg said. "So we wanted to get up and down the floor a little bit, which we did a really nice job of."
After sitting out the last three minutes of the second quarter with two fouls, Albers returned to score 10 of Minster's 16 points in the third. Stephey bombed another try to put the Cats up 40-30 with four minutes left in the third quarter.
The Rangers were unable to make a run, allowing both coaches to substitute freely in the fourth quarter.
Stephey was the only other Wildcat in double figures with 10 points, while McClurg added nine.
With its sixth win in a row, Minster improves to 13-6 overall and 3-4 in the MAC.
"I'm happy with where we're at," coach McClurg said. "I think we still have a lot of slop to clean up yet, which makes me happy in some ways, and gives me hope that we can be even better than we are."
The Wildcats host St. Marys Tuesday, followed by a showdown with Marion Local next Friday at the Hangar.
New Knoxville (7-11, 0-7) was led in scoring by Parker Jones with 14 points. The Rangers are at Fort Loramie tonight and travel to Parkway next Friday.
