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Clover boys roll to fourth straight win
CLOVERDALE — Cascade could claim a moral victory for Tuesday night after holding Jalen Moore — the state’s leading scorer — under his average.
But considering that Moore averages 38.1 points per game, a 35-point night isn’t so bad — especially since the Clovers easily defeated Cascade 72-42.
Moore only did slight damage to his scoring average, compiling a workman-like evening of seven points in the first quarter, 12 in the second quarter and eight in each of the final two periods.
The speedy guard hit 13 of 20 shots from the field including 3 of 6 from 3-point range, and was 6 for 8 at the free throw line.
The Clovers racked up 22 first-quarter points, getting scoring from all five starters.
Cascade was nearly as efficient offensively, hitting 8 of 9 shots from the field and all of its 3-point attempts, but still finding itself three points behind at the first stop.
The second quarter was all Cloverdale, as the Clovers dominated by an 18-4 margin to take a 40-23 halftime lead.
Cascade’s comeback efforts were hindered by the absence of leading scorer Dalton DuBois, who was assessed a technical foul in the first quarter for throwing a ball at a Clover player and was not played after that time by his coach/father Chris DuBois.
To Cascade’s credit, the Cadets played Cloverdale evenly in the third period, which saw the hosts take a 55-38 lead into the final period.
The Cadets did not score in the fourth period until 1:46 to play, while the Clovers were running off 17 points in a row.
Moore received double-figure support from Jake Wilkes with 16, but the Clovers also got valuable offensive help from Nick Winders and Jake Kelley with six each and Parker Watts with five.
“We started out the game and got multiple guys hitting shots from the perimeter, which makes us more versatile and makes us tougher to guard,” Clover coach Patrick Rady said. “Jake Wilkes did a good job on the interior. Parker [Watts], Nick [Winders] and Jake [Kelley] all hit some big shots from the perimeter.”
The Cadets opened the game in a box-and-one defense on Moore, and Rady said that did not come as a surprise to him.
“We saw them play Indian Creek, and they did that to Jared DeHart,” he said. “We figured they might try that. The kids recognized it and had good spacing. We hit some threes, and we also slashed into the seams inside.”
The Clovers were able to create several turnovers with their defense, including nine in the fourth quarter.
“We had really active hands and got a lot of deflections,” Rady said. “To be the defensive team we want to be, we have to be able to stop dribble penetration. That’s something that we work on every day and we have to get better at.”
The Clovers have now won four straight games and remained undefeated in 2018.
After losing their first two games to Terre Haute South and Edgewood to open the season, the Clovers have won 11 of their last 13 overall.
“We’ll take that any time,” Rady said. “It was especially good to see Jake Wilkes break out of a recent slump.
“He did some other things tonight driving to the basket. He had settled for outside shots too much the past few games.”
Cascade was led by Michael Alderson with 15 points and Chase Western with 14.
The Clovers finished in a three-way tie for first in the East Division of the Western Indiana Conference, but were awarded third place via the tiebreaker system.
They play at Northview on Friday in the fifth-place game, and host Delphi on Saturday night.
CASCADE (42) — D.DuBois 0-1 0-0 0, Alderson 7-13 0-0 15, Western 6-8 0-0 14, Compliment 3-9 0-0 7, Stevenson 1-2 0-0 2, Hurst 0-0 0-0 0, Tharp 0-2 0-0 0, Burch 0-0 0-0 0, Phillips 1-3 2-2 4, Z.DuBois 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 18-38 FG, 2-2 FT, 42 TP
CLOVERDALE (72) — Moore 13-20 6-8 35, Wilkes 6-10 4-5 16, Watts 2-3 1-2 5, Winders 2-3 0-0 6, J.Kelley 2-2 0-0 6, N.Kelley 1-1 0-0 2, Miller 1-1 0-0 2, Blevins 0-0 0-0 0, Ashcraft 0-2 0-0 0, Sims 0-0 0-0 0, Gill 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 27-42 FG, 10-13 FT, 72 TP
Cascade 19 4 15 4 — 42
Cloverdale 22 18 15 17 — 72
3-point shooting — Cloverdale 8-15 (Moore 3-6, Wilkes 0-3, Watts 1-2, Winders 2-3, J.Kelley 2-2), Cascade 4-12 (Alderson 1-2, Western 2-4, Compliment 1-4.)