Boys basketball: Princeton opens the New year with win at Mendota

MENDOTA – The New Year can bring new life for a high school basketball team.

Coming off a slow start (6-8) in the 2023 portion of the season, the Princeton Tigers turned the calendar to the new year with a 60-47 win at Mendota in Three Rivers East play Friday.

“It’s a nice way to start out and it’s even more nice to go back home and play some home games starting Monday,” PHS coach Jason Smith said, noting the Tigers will play just their second game of the season at Prouty Gym. “It’s nice to get a conference road win. Good bounce back after (the loss at Bureau Valley). Now we look forward to Monday.”

Monday’s game with Kewanee will be the first of three straight at home after playing 14 of their first 15 away from the comforts of home.

The Tigers took a 23-7 lead at the end of the first quarter on a deep 3-pointer by junior sharp-shooter Jordan Reinhardt from the left corner, just beating the buzzer, with Smith pumping his fist from the sidelines to put the exclamation mark.

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The Trojans (7-10, 1-1) used an 11-2 run to cut their deficit in half at 27-19 with two minutes left in the second quarter on a layup by Izaiah Nanez, who scored 10 points in the first half and was just warming up. He finished the night with a game-high 28 points.

Senior point guard Korte Lawson sank a pair of free throws and scored on a drive with 15 seconds left to send the Tigers to intermission with a 31-19 lead.

Smith said the Tigers got some good pick me ups from some of their reserve players, who saw more playing time with top scorer Noah LaPorte sitting out the entire second quarter with early foul trouble after scoring six points in the first quarter.

“We had a lot of different guys step up tonight who aren’t used to playing as much and when they get their named called upon came in - Evan Driscoll, Jayden Fulkerson, Landon Roark - and played well, especially in that second quarter,” Smith said. “He got two fouls in the first quarter and we sat him out the whole second quarter. Had to roll the dice a little bit and kept him fresh for the second half. Those kids came in and played well.”

Nanez (11) and Cale Strouss (5) helped keep Mendota in the game, accounting for all of the Trojans’ scoring (16) in the third quarter, but LaPorte hit a 3-pointer to keep the Tigers up 44-35 at the end of the third quarter.

“We got off to a poor start. We’ve had issues with that all year, especially at home,” Mendota coach Steve Wasmer said. “Princeton came out and took it to us. They were ready to play from the get go. We dug ourselves that hole and tried to get out of it but couldn’t quite get over the hump. Every time we got close Lawson and LaPorte would make a bucket to stem the tide.”

LaPorte made up for lost time, scoring eight points in the third quarter and six in the fourth quarter, including his third dunk of the night off an inbounds play, to put the Tigers ahead 57-45 late.

Some times, Smith noted, the dunks were not a good thing.

“I love the dunk and it excites us and gets us going. But at the same time, once we dunk the ball, we’ve got to know defensively what we’re doing right away,” he said. “We tried to press them the first quarter and we dunked and celebrated and didn’t press them. But I’d rather them be excited. We’ll overcome those mistakes.”

Smith said there are some things the Tigers need to work on moving forward.

“We turned the ball over too much tonight. I understand that, we got to clean that up,” he said. “Some of them were unforced turnovers. It was a physical ball game, but we’ve got to overcome that physicality of the game. In the end, I thought our defense was really, really good. And I thought we rebounded well.”

LaPorte finished the night with a team-high 20 points. Lawson tallied 16 and Reinhardt added 13.

Notes: Princeton won the sophomore game 49-40 led by Gavin Lanham with 19 points. Alex Beetz led Mendota with 11 points. Mendota won the freshmen prelim 55-21.