WILMINGTON — Matthew Butcher scored 30 points and Wilmington routed Batavia 77-55 Friday night in the SBAAC American Division opener at Fred Summ ers Court.
Butcher hit 12 of 22 from the field, including 5 three-pointers, as Wilmington raced out to an early lead and never looked back.
“Butcher, he’s a special player,” said WHS coach Matt Kramer, who made his home coaching debut on the night. “With him (Butcher) and Cam (Coomer) on the floor together, that’s quite a tandem.”
Coomer dropped 21 points. The two combined for 23 rebounds. Coomer had three steals and three assists.
Wilmington is 1-1 on the year and 1-0 in the American. Batavia is 1-2 overall, 0-1 in conference play.
“This is a great place to coach,” Kramer said of the WHS gym. “The pep band, the student section … it’s a great place to be a high school basketball player and coach. It was a lot of fun.”
Coomer and Butcher started out carrying the Hurricane offensive load early. Butcher drained a pair of threes and Coomer had nine points, including 4 of 4 at the free throw line. Late in the quarter, WHS received scoring from Brady Vilvens (steal and layin) and Chris Custis (stickback). The lead after one was 27-10.
“We’re just scratching the surface of what we can do,” said Kramer. “But that’s the pace we want to play at.”
The Hurricane defensive effort continued into the second, holding the Bulldogs without a field goal for nearly half the period. Wilmington pushed its lead to 32-10.
“Our defensive intensity in the half was outstanding,” the coach noted.
Butcher had 9 of Wilmington’s 12 points in the second quarter. The rest of the squad was 0 for 9 from the floor.
The Bulldogs made a late run, a loose phrase in a 20-point game. But Butcher’s old-fashioned three-point play with 8 seconds to go in the half allowed WHS to maintain a comfortable advantage, 39-19.
Batavia never threatened on the scoreboard the rest of the way. And while some may see the turnovers (8 in the third, 13 in the second half) and offensive rebounds surrendered (8 in the third) as bad things for the Hurricane, Kramer does not.
“There’s a lot of work for us to do,” said Kramer. “But I don’t want to go overboard on that stuff, throwing their stats in their face. I don’t want to handcuff them to not try and make that next play.”
SUMMARY
Dec 6, 2019
@Fred Summers Court
Wilmington 77 Batavia 55
B^10^9^14^22^^55
W^27^12^15^23^^77
(55) BATAVIA (fg-3fg-ft-tp) Applegate 1-1-2-5 Heckard 4-0-1-9 Hart 2-1-1-6 Wiscombe 3-1-0-7 Weisbrodt 6-0-1-13 Kongo 0-0-1-1 Gibbs 2-0-0-4 Stepp 1-0-3-5 Shephard 0-0-0-0 Lisk 0-0-0-0 Witt 2-1-0-5. TOTALS 21-4-9-55
(77) WILMINGTON (fg-3fg-ft-tp) Butcher 12-5-1-30 Coomer 6-3-6-21 Custis 2-0-1-5 Baltazar 2-1-0-5 Vilvens 2-0-0-4 Jones 0-0-2-2 Barker 2-0-0-4 Blessing 0-0-0-0 Griffith 2-2-0-6 Brooks 0-0-0-0 Warix 0-0-0-0 Bernhardt 0-0-0-0. TOTALS 28-11-10-77
FIELD GOALS: B 21-65 (Weisbrodt 6-15); W 28-64 (Butcher 12-22 Coomer 6-17)
3 PT FIELD GOALS: B 4-14; W 11-28 (Butcher 5-10 Coomer 3-9)
FREE THROWS: B 9-26; W 10-14 (Coomer 6-6)
REBOUNDS: B-43 (Weisbrodt 8) W-48 (Butcher 12 Coomer 11 Custis 9 Barker 5 Baltazar 2 Vilvens 2 Blessing 2)
ASSISTS: B-9 (Wiscombe 4); W-16 (Vilvens 4 Coomer 3 Barker 3 Baltazar 2)
STEALS: B-9 (Stepp 3); W-11 (Coomer 3 Custis 3 Vilvens 2 Baltazar 2)
BLOCKED SHOTS: B-1; W-0
TURNOVERS: B-19; W-21
